Cranford Edges Westfield 4-3 on the Ice

Earlier this season, the Cranford hockey team lost to Westfield by a score of 6-1. For several weeks, the Cougars have been waiting for a chance to avenge that loss to one of the top teams in Union County.

Thursday night they did, beating the Blue Devils 4-3 in an exciting back and forth contest decided by Eric Pawlick's second goal of the game at 9:39 of the third period which gave Cranford a two-goal lead. The defensive efforts and goaltending by Trevor Hertz made the difference in the end.

"I felt like our team was playing with a chip on their shoulder after the 6-1 loss. We played hard and got the victory."

"It's Westfield, and last game they came out strong and beat us," said Cranford goalie Trevor Hertz We just wanted to win this game really bad. We had great defense and scoring."

"We played great tonight," said Cranford head coach Rich Hurley. "I've been waiting for this game all season long. The kids skated really hard. A lot of kids stepped up. We had everybody play well on the same night. We played a lot better defensively, we forechecked a lot harder, we were skating a lot harder. We've been trying to work on the gap between the defense and the forwards. They did a really good job of that tonight, and Westfield didn't get the odd man rushes they were getting the last time."

Westfield head coach Dennis Doherty is looking for a better effort from his team.

"We're not good right now. It's happened the last three games," he said. "We started out 3-0 and the kids think that they're good and we're not. Tonight proved that once again. Lack of effort, lack of discipline, we take way too many penalties. It's up to the kids to prove that they need to play, otherwise we shake things up."

Westfield, which came in 3-1 on the season and are regarded as a favorite for the county title, received two goals from Nick Attanasio, including the first of the game at the 8:00 mark of the first period. Jake Zimmerman evened it up for the Cougars at the 9:54 mark of the second stanza to lock the game at 1-all.

The Blue Devils came back less than two minutes later when Attanasio struck again to put Westfield back on top 2-1, but that lead was short-lived, when Russ Harvey struck to tie the game at 2-2 after two periods of play.

At that point, Pawlick took over, scoring back-to-back goals early in the third, the first on a slap shot from the point off a feed from Sean Feeney to make it 3-2.

Less than four minutes later, Pawlick struck again, when senior Pat Hartnett ripped a shot towards net which was deflected in by Pawlick, pushing the Cougar lead to 4-2. afterwards, Pawlick explained what the difference was in this game.

"A lot more passing, we skated harder, backtracking, stuff like that," said Pawlick. "I really stepped it up tonight, better than usual and put more pucks in the net."

Westfield wasn't done yet. C.J. Meyer, who also had two assists, put one in the back of the net with 5:36 left to put the fans on the edge of their seats. But that's when the Cranford defense took over, with Hertz and company denying Westfield on several occasions to hold on to the hard-earned victory, giving the Cougars a bit of revenge.

"They're stepping up great," Hartnett said of Cranford's young defensive corp. "We have a lot of young defensemen, and that's been our problem up until now, but today they played great."

"Our defense really picked up the guy in front, which was a problem the last tim,e" said Hertz. "Everyone was really fired up to win this game. Our offense had some great passing plays, which was big."

Hertz had 33 saves in the win, while Westfield's Steven Wronski stopped 16 shots.

The win improves Cranford to 3-4 as they aim for the .500 mark against Scotch Plains-Fanwood on Tuesday night. They'll drop the puck at 8:30 at Warinanco Park.

Westfield will be back in action on Wednesday versus Ridge at Warinanco at 8:30 p.m.