Martlets Battle Hillside

The Martlets hosted the Hillside Hawks on this Friday night in Jackson Rink, and the faithful were treated to a high-paced, physical contest. Unfortunately, despite building 1-0, 2-1, and 3-2 leads, the Black and Gold fell in the end to the visitors on a goal netted with only 41 seconds remaining in the game. The coaches felt that the JVs were the better team 5-on-5, but the story of this game was the amount of time the Martlets spent in the penalty box (and, disappointingly, the players who were sent to the showers early with game misconducts). On the day, Westminster had 14 penalties, many of them needless or retaliatory, and they struggled to maintain their focus and composure in critical moments. On the ensuing Hillside power plays, the Hawks scored 3 times—their PP unit was skilled, well-coached, and moved the puck quickly and accurately. This old coach knows all too well that spending that much time in the box and defending is not the way to win a hockey game. The game started auspiciously enough when Tyler Ungerman ‘26 notched his second goal in two games about five minutes into the first, deftly collecting a pass from linemate Jack Pickett ‘26 and firing the puck mid-post on the Hawk keeper's glove hand side. More broadly, that goal was produced by several good shifts in a row of Martlet forechecking pressure, and while it doesn’t show up on the scoresheet, the whole bench played a role in the JV’s early lead. Those first five minutes are how we want to play all the time. The Hawks soon found their legs, however, and netminder Lucas Steniger ‘29, who had another terrific game with 38 saves, was called on to make more than a few saves. The first of the many Martlet penalties put the Hawks on the PP, and they went to work: a quick passing sequence along the blue line and perhaps a too-aggressive play from a Westminster defender up high led to a Hawk alone to Steniger’s right; the resulting impressive one-timer beat him over his left shoulder. The Martlets regained the lead late in the first frame on a PP of their own—their first PP goal of the season, remarkably—when Xavier Khan ‘27, who gets better every game, took a pass up on the blue line and calmly waited for traffic to collect in front of the Hillside net before ripping a shot over the tender’s blocker. Dylan Zapata ‘27—playing with his usual energy and strength—assisted on Kahn’s goal, as did centerman Paul Coccaro ‘28, who dug the puck out of the corner and started the play. Right at the end of the first, a hard check from a Martlet was taken exception to by a Hawk, and the resulting dust-up led to penalties on both teams, and one ejection for Westminster. The first period ended with the JVs on top, 2-1, and feeling good about their overall play if they could just get past the issues at the end of the first. It was not to be. In the second stanza, it all came unraveled. Unable to rise above the provocations from the visitors and offering some of their own, the undisciplined Black and Gold allowed themselves to get sucked into altercation after altercation, collecting roughing penalties, unsportmanlike penalties, and a second game misconduct that left an already short bench even shorter. Hillside got the next goal to even the score at 2-2, again on the PP. The home team managed to climb back into the lead 3-2 when blueliner Matt Polastry ‘29 carried the puck around the Hillside net and banked it in off the goalie, sliding across his crease in a vain attempt to make the save. Fellow defensemen Benji Hanson ‘28 assisted on Polastry’s goal, beginning the play with a good stretch pass up the ice. Hanson had a really solid overall game, and played with impressive confidence and poise—something too many of his teammates were missing tonight. Polastry and Hanson were joined on the blueline by Thomas Merrill ‘28, Carsten Matthews ‘28, Mikey Wang ‘28, and Grayson Augsberger ‘29. Throughout the game, this defensive corps was generally a bright spot for the Martlets. In the third, again, the Black and Gold found themselves in and out of the box, which makes getting any offensive flow at all challenging and makes a mess of the lines and the rotation. The Hawks took advantage, pressing Steniger hard and outshooting the JVs by a comfortable margin. They tied the game—on the PP for the third time for those scoring at home—early in the period, and the Martlets were chasing the game. But the boys hung tough and generated a few chances of their own; when we could play 5-on-5, we were a real threat to the Hawks. With 41 seconds on the clock and the game knotted at 3-3 and looking as if the teams were headed to OT, a pair of Martlets lost a puck battle along the near boards in the home end, and a Hawk found a teammate just to the right of the high slot. His low, hard shot through traffic—Steniger never really saw it, though he managed to get a leg pad on it—found the back of the net to put Hillside up for the first time in the game, 4-3. And that’s how the game ended, despite a flurry of 6-on-5 with Steniger on the bench. Another unfortunate incident followed the final horn, which resulted in one final Martlet ejection. That made three for the game, which is more than any other contest this old coach can regrettably remember. Bottom line, and the team addressed this after the game and will again before today’s tilt with Salisbury (2:30 pm at Jackson Rink), we have to be better: we have to play with controlled intensity, we have to respect our teammates, our opponents, the officials, and the game, and we have to wear the Black-and-Gold with more pride and purpose. These expectations are non-negotiable, and players know that if they cannot uphold those standards, they’ll be watching a lot of hockey from behind the glass.