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North Haven topples Hand in shootout, shaves Avena’s head; meet Branford in SCC D2 Final

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WEST HAVEN — North Haven coach Chris Avena felt he had plenty to motivate his team heading into the Southern Connecticut Conference Division II semifinals against Hand-Madison. Not only were the third-seeded Indians underdogs against second-seeded Hand and had lost to the Tigers a week earlier, Avena provided the magic words.

“You win this game, you can shave my head,” Avena told his team.

North Haven heard the message.

Paced by Mason Sullivan’s third period goal, and tallies by Aaron Racino and Eli Brubacher in a shootout, North Haven advanced to its first ever SCC finals with a 2-1 shootout victory over Hand at the Edward L. Bennett Rink in West Haven Thursday evening.

BOYS HOCKEY LEAGUE TOURNAMENT SCOREBOARD

The Indians (12-6-3) will play top-seeded Branford, a 7-0 winner over East Haven, in the finals Saturday evening at 4 p.m. at the Bennett Rink. Branford will return to the finals for the second straight year, looking to defend its title.

“We have grown so much in the last year,” Avena said. “They came out flying again, but we had Andrew Sacco back there to keep us in the game. We are fortunate to have him back there. This is a big win for us.”

Andrew Sacco made 27 saves in goal for the Indians, but it was an unbelievable glove save to rob Hand’s Jeff Pinover in front with 40 seconds left in overtime which sent the game to the shootout. From there, Sacco allowed just a goal to Ryan Pfaff to even the shootout at one after Norrth Haven struck first on a tally by Racino.

“We are happy with this win,” Sacco said. “They are a great team. Everybody was saying watch out for Hand. They were the best team. But, we proved everybody wrong. They had a lot of opportunities, but we never backed down. The boys really fought hard for this win.”

With the shootout even at one, Brubacher rifled a shot past Hand goaltender Eric Dillner for the eventual winner. Dillner was outsanding in the loss, turning aside 29 shots and two more in the shootout.

“We have been saying all year Eric Dillner is one of the best goalies in the state,” Hand coach Brian Gonsalves said. “He has been outstanding. For only playing in goal for three years, he is one of the best goalies in division two.”

North Haven evened the game at one 5:28 into the third period when Mason Sullivan sniped a shot from the right faceoff circle past Dillner.

“I thought in the last three minutes of the second period, we took it to them,” Avena said. “We had some great shifts and we carried that over to the third period.”

After a scoreless first period which saw a total of 15 shots by both teams, Hand (17-3-1) finally got on the scoreboard with 3:24 gone by in the second period when junior Joey DeAngelis took a feed from Joshua Ruotolo and beat Sacco to the bottom left corner from the right faceoff circle.

The goal by DeAngelis would be the only scoring for the first 30 minutes as both Sacco and Dillner came up big in goal for their respective teams.

Sacco denied DeAngelis in front with a pad save 1:23 into the contest and robbed Ethan Massey’s backhander in front with 6:40 to go in the opening period.

Dillner saved his best early for the final four minutes of the middle period when he denied William Sullivan from the slot with a blocker save with 3:55 to go, then made consecutive pad saves seven seconds apart on Brubacher and Mason Sullivan.

PLAYER OF THE GAME

Andrew Sacco: North Haven junior goaltender made 27 saves, then added four more in the shootout to lead the Indians to victory.

QUOTABLE

“You win this game, you can shave my head!” — North Haven coach Chris Avena to his team.

Jones scores twice, Branford returns to title game

The Hornets (18-2-1) advanced to their second consecutive finals by rolling out to a 5-0 lead after two periods and never looking back in their 7-0 victory over East Haven in the other semifinal.

Zachary Jones scored twice as the Hornets scored twice in the first and three times in the second period. Jones also added an assist in the contest. Jack Manware added three goals, Christopher Donadio had three assists and Spencer Engstrom added a pair of helpers.

“We go into every game with the same attitude,” Jack Manware said. “We know anything can happen. We want to play our game. It means a lot to go back. It is a great experience and it is good for the younger kids to experience.”

Branford came out firing on all cylinders in the opening period, holding a 20-10 shot advantage and a 2-0 lead.

“East Haven came out with a big surge in the first five minutes,” Branford coach James DiNapoli said. “We had to grind through that and I think that short-handed goal by Jack Manware allowed us to reset and get going again.”

William Linder opened the scoring just 3:36 into the contest off an assist from Donadio, and Jones increased the lead to 2-0 with 2:07 left in the opening period off an assist from Engstrrom.

While the Hornets were putting on the pressure, East Haven goaltender Logan Hamilton made 18 saves in the first 15 minutes of play and finished with 48 saves in the game.

“We got beat by the better team tonight,” East Haven coach Lou Pane said after his team fell to 8-13. “That’s why they are ranked number one in the SCC and ranked one going into the state tournament. We made a couple of costly turnovers early in the game and we are down 2-0. We did the same in the second and before you know it, we are chasing four goals. You can’t do that against a team like that.”

The Hornets blew the game open in the middle period, using a short-handed tally by Jack Manware just 24 seconds in for a 3-0 advantage. Jones scored his second of the game 2:20 in with assists going to Donadio and Matthew Morgan, before Max Manware scored off an assist from Jones with 2:36 to go in the second for the five-goal lead.

Jack Manware scored twice in the final 5:26 of the contest for the final margin of victory.