It wasn't quite the victory they were looking for, but the Cranford varsity ice hockey team took a bit of satisfaction in their 4-4 tie against Governor Livingston Monday night at Warinanco Ice Rink in Roselle.
The Cougars owned a record of 11-8-1 and were looking for payback after having lost to the Highlanders 7-4 earlier in the season.
"The third period, I knew our team would come out flying," said senior goalie Mike Williams, who had 18 saves. "We definitely did not want to lose to this team again. I'm close to a lot of kids on GL and they always tell me how they're doing, always bragging and everything, so tonight was good to get the tie."
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"We played pretty well tonight," said Cranford head coach Rich Hurley. "I'm a little disappointed. We took a lot of penalties, especially in the second period and that hurt us a lot. I feel like we beat ourselves a little bit and I feel that if we had not taken so many penalties and played a little more disciplined, we would have won tonight."
Senior Pat Hartnett got the scoring started just 3:17 in the contest off an assist by Billy Davitt to make it 1-0 after the first period. But GL had the better of the early play in the second stanza, scoring three unanswered goals to take a 3-1 lead.
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This was before the Cougars tied the match on a pair of unassisted goals by Gary Merwede and Eric Pawlick to even the game at 3-all.
The Cougars quickly took the lead at the 12:11 mark in the third period, when freshman Tom Fitzgerald found Sean Feeney for the go-ahead goal.
The Highlanders tied it up two minutes later and then it was up to Williams to keep GL off the board in the final nine minutes.
"I had a few good saves at the beginning of the game, they didn't have too many shots," Williams said. "But we did come together at the end of the game. I made a good save at the end to make sure they didn't score."
"Mike did well in goal," said Hurley. "Offensively, we generated a lot of pressure. We got a lot of good opportunities up front. Their goalie made a couple of big saves. We missed a couple of layups, so to speak. Defensively, we did not do a good job protecting the front of our own net and protecting our own zone."
The good news is that Cranford has already clinched a spot in the state tournament, thanks to their 8-0 whitewash of Dayton last Friday night.
"It's great, the last two years I think we missed it," said Hurley. "It was nice to get that win on Friday night. Dayton is not one of the strongest teams in the league and we were able to go over there and put pressure on them all game long. They do have a good goalie, we got to him early, and against a good goalie, if you do that, you're in good shape."
"It's good to be a senior and make states," said Williams. "Being able to clinch it, and having coach Hurley give me that chance is just a great feeling."
Williams and his teammates are also looking forward to the conference tournament, which features all the teams in Union County.
"We definitely want to make a run in the tournament," he said. "I believe we can definitely beat every team that we've played. We have not lost to any team twice. We can definitely beat every team in this league."
