Scotch Plains Ices Colonia 6-3

Three goals for Ed Logie, three assists from Alex Markovits, more important playing time for freshmen and an impressive victory without three key players sidelined with injuries.  

That's the reason there were plenty of smiles in the Scotch Plains locker room after Friday night's solid 6-3 victory over Colonia. But they weren't smiling after the first period, when they trailed 2-0, giving up a goal on the first shot.

"We were kind of sleeping in the first period," said SP-F head coach Matt Gualtieri. "We challenged them in the locker room to come out and be ready to play in the next two periods and they responded. We didn't think we had a bad first period, but we didn't have our 'A' game."

Colonia scored two early goals, taking advantage of a bad bounce on the first goal at 14:43 of the first of two goals by George Rodriguez. The Patriots soon made it 2-0 at the 9:59 mark, which put the Raiders behind the eight-ball.

"The second goal was just bad coverage coming back," Gualtieri said. "Other than that, I thought we had a good first period and we really took over in the second and continued in the third."

Indeed, it was all Raiders in the middle period, scoring five unanswered goals. And it was Ed Logie who put away the first two to tie the score at 2-all.

The first goal came at 13:57 off an assist by Alex Markovits, while the second tally came unassisted at the 8:00 mark.

The Raiders took the lead for good four minutes later, when John Foti scored off assists by Logie and Markovits to make it 3-2.

Logie finished the hat trick with 1:32 left in the second off another assist by Markovits, who then added the insurance on a goal with :10 left, which gave SP-F a commanding 5-2  lead entering the third stanza.

"Logie came out in the second period and took over the game," Gualtieri said. "He had a couple of breakaways in the first, he just couldn't bury it. He started to put them home. Not only did he play well in the offensive zone, but he was very, very good in our zone, eliminating their chances down low. He's not the biggest guy, but he's got probably the biggest heart on the team."

Freshman Pat Foti got the start in goal and earned his first varsity win with 16 saves.

"It was great, it felt good, my first varsity win, Foti said. "It started off rough with the first two goals, one shot, one goal, but overall it was a great game. We won again. We have Dayton on Monday. It felt good to win."

This was Foti's sixth varsity game and he also plays on a travel team, so he's used to handling the pressure of playing at a higher level.

"We're coming together this year," Foti said. "Next year we have a lot of kids coming up. We only have two seniors this year, next year we'll have four. A lot of kids are getting ice time and next year, it's not going to be like that. We'll actually have a true J.V. and true varsity team and we'll see what happens next year, but this year is going good so far."

Gualtieri freshmen Nick Gianni and Johnny Lenart probably got more minutes than they ever expected on the ice.

"It was pretty intense," Lenart said. "My line (Adam Terry and Shawn Zombri) really helped me out. I had a lot of hits. It's a lot more comfortable. Last year was my first year playing. I came up from the middle school team and it's a big difference."

With each minute of play, each period and each game, the Raiders are getting precious experience, a fact that does not go unnoticed on the bench.

"That's what we were hoping for," Gualtieri said. "For everyone to get better, get more confidence, get some experience and when we get these kids coming in next year, we're going to have a lot of inexperienced players coming up, a couple of kids who played travel, but a lot who haven't. These kids getting better and more experienced is going to help us, not only for the rest of this year, but going forward."