Cougars Lose to Hillbillies Before Blue Devils Showdown

It was a hole they just couldn't dig themselves out of. Down by three goals at the end of the first period, Verona and Cranford played scoreless hockey the rest of the way, but the damage was already done, as the Cougars fell to the Hillbillies 3-0 at Warinanco Park in Elizabeth.

"We're not good enough not to show up in the first period," said Cranford head coach Rich Hurley. "We have to play 45 minutes. Most of the game our defense was not very good. I'm talking about all five guys, running all over the place, not getting the puck out of the zone. Everybody's looking to go down and score goals, but we're not taking care of our own end first."

"We were expecting this team to be good, but we really thought we could have won this game tonight," said senior Pat Hartnett. "We didn't get any goals. We need to play better defense."

Verona came flying out of the gate, putting pressure on the home side, finally hitting the back netting at the 7:53 mark of the first period when captain Eric Thiele scored thanks to assists by Matt Lander and Nikos Polis to make it 1-0.

Less than three minutes later, Greg Schiffenhaus made 2-0 off an assist by Ryan Flood, and the floodgates opened two minutes after that, when Thiele returned the favor by assisting on a goal by Lander to put Verona up 3-0. That would be all they would need.

"We came out a little bit flat, but Verona's a good team," said Hurley. "They came out and they were flying. They played very well. One of their players mentioned to one of our kids, that it was the best period they played all season. When a team comes at you like that, you have to weather the storm for a while, because most teams can't keep that up for 45 minutes, and we weren't able to do that."

"Honestly, the defensemen played pretty well," said Hartnett. "It's the forwards that aren't getting back and helping the defensemen. The other teams are getting odd-man rushes. Everybody's thinking score, score, score, instead of playing defense."

Verona outshot Cranford in the first 9-2, while the Cougars had a 9-4 edge in the second stanza. Things quieted down in the third period, with only two shots on goal by each team. Verona outshot Cranford for the game 15-13.

The Cougars will have to turn it up on Wednesday. That's when they face the Blue Devils of Westfield, who beat the Cougars 6-0 earlier in the season before losing 4-3 in December.

"We have to play better than we did tonight," said Hurley. "It's going to be a tough game, they beat us up pretty good the first time around. They weren't too happy when we beat them. That (4-3 win vs. Westfield) was probably the best game we played so far. We're going to have to bring that again."

"We're really excited," said Hartnett. "We just want to win that game. That's going to end up being a very important game in the standings. If we get two wins against one of the best teams in Union County that'll be huge coming into the tournament."

And what makes the rivalry even more interesting, is that many of these players know each other well.

"A lot of these kids play club hockey together, there's just a lot of pride on the line between the two teams," said Hurley. "It's always been a big rivalry, hopefully the boys will be ready to play."

The coach sees bright things ahead for his team.

"We're still a young team, a lot of freshmen and sophomores logging a lot of time out there, which is great," he said. "We're probably in a better position today than I thought we would have been a month ago. A lot of guys are starting to learn, adjusting to the level of play in high school, compared to what they were used to. We still have a ways to go, but if you would have told me at the beginning of the season that we'd be .500 on January 4, I would have taken that and run."

They'll drop the puck vs. Westfield on Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. at the Warinanco Park ice rink.