Mountaineers Rock Westborough

Westborough High School head hockey coach Tom Temple was out of state and couldn’t be at Saturday night’s game against the Wachusett Regional Mountaineers, so he left the team in the capable hands of assistant Randy Morin. This turned out to be a very unfortunate turn of events for Morin, though, as the Rangers endured a 5-0 loss at North Star Rink.

The Mountaineers dominated in this game. The score after two periods was 2-0, thanks to the tremendous play of Rangers’ goaltender Ryan Venditti, who faced a 38-shot offensive by Wachusett through those two periods, allowing just one goal in each.

In the first period in particular, the puck was hardly ever out of the Rangers’ defensive end. Wachusett had a distinct size and speed advantage over the Rangers. Still thanks to Venditti’s brilliance, it appeared as if the first period was going to end scoreless. But with just 27 seconds left, Mountaineer Jeremy Bennie found a loose puck out front and managed to dribble it past Venditti for a 1-0 lead. The shots on goal after the first period were 21-2 in favor of Wachusett.

The second period was more of the same, though the Rangers had two power plays - including a two-man advantage that lasted over a minute.

Still it was just a 1-0 game until late in the second when Wachusett’s Dan Wisniewski went top shelf with a wrist shot from the right faceoff circle, making the score 2-0 with 2:36 left.

The Mountaineers outshot the Rangers 17-0 in the frame, making the two-period total 38-2.

 Any thought the Rangers may have had of mounting a miraculous comeback was squashed less than a minute into the third period as Wachusett struck for two goals just 17 seconds apart.

Steve Trychon jammed in a rebound past Venditti 29 seconds in, and Jeremy Bennie struck for his second of the night at 46 seconds, converting a great centering pass from behind the net from linemate Marc Happy.

The coup de grace was delivered with just 33 seconds left by Steve Iacaboni, who blew past a Ranger defenseman while Wachusett was shorthanded and whistled one past the shell-shocked Venditti to make the final score 5-0.

The final shots on goal tally was 58-4 in favor of the Mountaineers.

Westborough fell to 1-4-1 overall and 1-2 in the Central Mass Quinn Conference. Their next game is Monday afternoon versus Hopkinton at Navin Rink in Marlborough.