Lyman Hall ices Sheehan

 

By Jim Gorske
Meriden Record-Journal correspondent
February 10, 2007

 

NORTH BRANFORD, CT - The old adage certainly held true to form Saturday night at the Northford Ice Pavilion - toss out the records when dealing with the emotion of a rivalry.

The Lyman Hall boys hockey team, despite facing a Sheehan squad fielding perhaps its strongest team in years, rode both emotion and the back of goalie Craig Ryan to a 7-4 win over the Titans before a jam-packed house on Senior Night.

The visiting Titans lost for only the third time this year as they dropped to 12-3-1.
The Trojans (4-11) continued their dominance in this cross-town rivalry by notching their 14th straight victory against Sheehan, a streak dating back to 1999.

Lyman Hall head coach Tim Belcher echoed the emotion evident by the numbers in attendance at their home rink. .

"The kids really feed off the atmosphere and the emotion. We came out focused and looked to be physical," said Belcher, in his seventh year at the Lyman Hall helm. "We did a great job in doing just that."

Sheehan's Tyler Timek opened the scoring at the 4:22 mark before Lyman Hall answered with goals by Joel Shanke and senior captain Jason Messina to lead 2-1 after the first period

After freshman TK Kiernan knotted the score just nine seconds into the second for Sheehan, the Trojans took advantage of Titan penalties to rack up power play goals by Stephen Barker and Lloyd Jacques, sandwiched around a Messina flip shot off a feed from Nick Sylvestre, to open a 5-2 margin.

While Lyman Hall took advantage of its opportunities, Sheehan had to contend with Ryan in net for the Trojans when provided theirs. The Trojan junior goalie turned back 14 shots in the period including a stretch where his team played two men down.

"Craig got us over the hump, being down two men," Belcher said." He made the saves he had to tonight."
Senior Mike Goodrich scored an unassisted goal at the 10:10 mark as Lyman Hall took a 5-3 lead into the third.

The Trojans' Sylvestre quickly silenced any thoughts of a Sheehan comeback with back-to-back goals in the final period before the Titans' Timek clsoed the scoring at the 10:19 mark with his second goal of the game.

Freshman Cameron Sidwell faced 32 Lyman Hall shots while Ryan turned away 32 of 36 shots on the night.