Milford Skates Away With 7-2 Loss

The Scarlet Hawks varsity hockey team dropped a tough loss to the Grafton Indians Monday night, losing 7-2 in Worcester.

The game was much closer than the score shows, however, as both teams were deadlocked at two goals apiece heading into the third period, where the Indians tallied five straight goals in just over six minutes.

Co-captain Mike Bane recorded a hat-trick, scoring two in the third period and one in the second, while forward Mike Moran did his part by scoring a goal and assisting on two for the Indians. In the losing effort for Milford, forwards Matt Candini and Alex Boudreau each scored a goal and added an assist.

“We tried to play too much offense instead of defense and it hurt us in the first two periods,” said Grafton head coach Mike Mazzola. “We finally put our stuff together and pressed the net a little bit more [in the third] and got the puck deep, making them work a lot harder. They’re a young team and they’re not going to get tired, so you just have to wear them down by keeping it in the zone and getting some shots falling and it really helped once we got our game going. I give them [Milford] the credit, they worked hard.”

Grafton started the game off with a lot of intensity, putting the pressure on Milford’s goaltender Benjaman Rafus. The pressure eventually led to a tripping penalty by defenseman Kyle Coupe and another penalty on defenseman Anthony Bratica, giving Grafton a 5-on-3 advantage at the 12:12 mark of the first period. Nine seconds later, co-captain defenseman Sean Coates scored the first goal of the game off assists from defenseman Andrew Kelly and Moran.

With 3:36 remaining in the first period, Milford struck back with a Candini goal off a mistake by Grafton goaltender Kyle Pellerin, who wasn’t able to cover up the bouncing puck in front of the net. Boudreau and Coupe got the assists on the score and the game was tied at one, after one.

Grafton came out of the intermission ready to go offensively and continued to put the pressure on Rafus and the defense, but it was Milford who would strike first. Boudreau would put home a shot in front of the net after a few stops by Pellerin, but the puck slipped by his back leg and into the goal. The assists went to right-winger Jared Balzarini and Candini.

Mazzola switched up goaltenders a few minutes after the goal from Candini, bringing in Ian Milosz off the bench. “We actually talked about that at the beginning of the game, and due to a snow delay the other day, I wanted to make sure that both of them had a little bit of a workout [tonight] and it worked well,” said Mazzola.

Milford had their opportunity to go ahead in the game with 3:35 left in the second when forward Brian Collins was whistled to the penalty box. But the Scarlet Hawks couldn’t take advantage of the 5-on-3 opportunity and Grafton killed off the power play.

“We looked real good early,” said Milford head coach Paul Agnese. “Everyone was skating hard, crashing the net and making smart plays with the puck.”

Unfortunately for the Hawks, the third period was a different story, as Grafton found out the key to success to scoring goals on Rafus: shoot low. Grafton piled up five goals in a row (all five below the goalie’s knees), getting one from Ben Symes to start the period and quickly getting another from Bane (assist from Symes) within the same minute, to put the Indians up, 4-2.

One minute later, Grafton scored again, this time it was defenseman Edward Moran getting into the act on assists from forward Mike Palmer and Shaun Shannon at the 10:53 mark. Twenty-four seconds after that goal, Moran scored off feeds from Ryan Sheridan and Symes to make it 6-2. Later in the period, Bane would add his third goal of the night off an assist from Moran, officially putting the game out of Milford’s reach at, 7-2.

“That was great. Mike [Bane] was a little slow to start [the season] and he had a lot of goals last year for us, so we count on him,” said Mazzola of Bane’s hat-trick. “He’s starting to warm up and get his groove back, so he’s moving right along.”

The Hawks dropped to 0-9 on the season, while Grafton improved to 2-5-2. Though the score may look deceiving to some, Mazzola knows that it was a lot closer than that and that though Milford is young, their future looks bright.

“They’re a hard-working team and they’re a young team, so the next few years who knows how they’re going to be if they keep the same crew going for a while,” he said.