Johnson Denies Cranford on the Ice

Even at the high school level, you don't usually find 14 goals scored in one game.

But that was the case Monday night as Arthur L. Johnson defeated Cranford 9-5 at Warinanco Park in Elizabeth.

Despite the Cougar loss, it was a big night for the forward Eric Pawlick, who tallied four of Cranford's five goals.

Nick Villaverde and Martin Rovnak both had hat-tricks in the win, while Sal DeMarzo had a pair of goals and two assists.

The Crusaders got on the board two minutes into the game, when Rovnak scored on assists by Michael Cieslak and Austin Percinger. Less than two minutes later, Kyle Mason scored unassisted to give ALJ a 2-0 lead.

Pawlick then cut the lead in half, assisted by Billy Davitt to make it 2-1, but Villaverde, ALJ's talented scoring threat, gave Johnson a 3-1 lead when he hit the net at the 5:10 mark of the first. Villaverde then assisted on a goal by Sal DeMarzo to stretch the lead to 4-1 after one period.

"We came into the game wholehearted that we were going to beat them," said senior forward Patrick Hartnett. "And we just came out very flat. I think their best player, Villaverde, just came out and went around everybody, and we didn't hit anybody until the second period."

The Cougars came out fired up in the second period. Davitt found Pawlick again less than two minutes in to make it 4-2.  But the Crusaders notched the next two goals with Rovnak and Villaverde to draw away to a 6-2 lead.

The momentum changed again as Cranford came right back with two more goals to cut the deficit to 6-4, with Hartnett assisting on a Davitt goal and Pawlick scoring unassisted.

"In the second period, I thought we looked pretty good," said Hartnett. "We were picking it back up, then everything fell apart again in the third period. The ice cut between periods just killed us. ALJ only runs two lines, so they looked really tired. That break revived them."

The Cougars were confident they were going to get the job done in the third, but that hope was short-lived.

"We all thought we were coming back. We thought we'd win the game 8-6, even 9-6," Hartnett said. "We were dominating the second period."

Johnson came right out of the locker room and put the game on ice in the first two minutes of the third period, scoring two goals in the first shift, one by Villaverde at the 13:12 mark, and another by Rovnak moments later. They would add the ninth and final goal on a short-handed tally by DeMarzo to stretch the lead to 9-4.

Pawlick scored his fourth goal late in the game for Cranford to make the final score 9-5.

The Cougars drop to 2-3 in conference play and 5-7 overall. They will practice twice more this week before taking on Jonathan Dayton on Monday night. The Crusaders improve to 5-4 on the campaign.

As for the rest of the season, there's still a long way to go and even more growing pains to go through. Even Hartnett wasn't sure what the future holds for his team.

"I don't know what to expect," said Hartnett. "Right now it's kind of like a rollercoaster ride with the young guys. I'm not sure if these kids have really made the transition from club hockey to high school, which is much faster, a lot more hitting, much more physical. They just havn't adapted completely. They're still going through the learning curve."

Which makes every game unpredictable.