Hockey Team Beats Mendham 3-1 For Second Straight Win

After a slow start to the season, the boys varsity hockey team has warmed up, earning a solid 3-1 victory over Mendham in the consolation round of the George Cron Tournament Tuesday night.

The Cougars notched two early goals to take control, led by senior Pat Hartnett, who scored at the 5:35 mark on an assist by Jake Zimmerman. Billy Davitt scored unassisted a little over a minute later to give Cranford a commanding 2-0 advantage.

"On the goal, I did something I normally don't do," said Hartnett. "I dumped it into the zone, got the rebound and scored."

After outshooting Mendham 10-0 in the first stanza, the Cougars allowed Mendham to have the better of the play in the second, when Brian Reed found the back of the net off the feed by David Gionco to cut the deficit to 2-1. Mendham outshot the Cougars 8-5 in the period.

"We played for two periods, first and third," said Coach Rich Hurley. "We dominated in the first period, we dominated in the third, we took the second period off, and we started trying to do too much and not playing as a team. We got back to our game in the third period and hung in there and played real solid at the end of the game."

The third period saw Cranford add the insurance goal just 2:35 in, when Gary Merwede beat Adam Vindigni to make it 3-1. The Cougars made it interesting in the final two minutes, when Mendham pulled the goalie and had a six on three after a pair of Cranford penalties, but Eric Pawlick and company did a great job of killing off the power play. Goalie Trevor Hertz made several outstanding stops, which allowed Cranford to improve to 2-3 on the young season. Still, Hurley wasn't happy his team had to sweat things out at the end.

"I was furious, a couple of really soft calls late in the game you don't usually get, but you don't hit the panic button, you just get out there and play your position," said Hurley. "One thing that's kind of nice is you get a free shot at the goal, you can ice it. We had some good personnel on the ice. The strategy was to keep the puck on the perimeter and let them shoot from the outside, Hertz has got to stop those and then you need to clear the rebounds, which we did."

"It's starting to come together a little bit better," said Hartnett. "We still have a lot of things to work on. Hopefully we can get better, start passing a little better, and put a few more pucks in the net. With only four seniors, the young guys are doing a good job stepping up in their first year."

The Cougars will start league play on Friday when they take on highly-touted Governor Livingston, one of the favorites going into the season. With back to back wins, Cranford hopes to make a statement with their young and improving team.