Monday, March 11, 2013

Wave Puck Drowns St. Joe’s in CIAC State Quarter Finals

By Brendan Ferguson and Graham Helgans

In the greatest 60 minutes they’ve played all season, Darien High School varsity boys ice hockey trounced St. Joseph 5-2 on Saturday, March 9th, sending them to the Division 1 Semi-Finals for the CIAC State Tournament.
While Darien was ranked 3rd coming into the playoffs and St. Joes was ranked 5th, beating St. Joes was no walk in the park. In the regular season, Wave Puck tied them 0-0 and St. Joes was FCIAC finalists this year.
Junior Tommy Watters opened up the scoring for the night when he put one past St. Joes goaltender early in the 1st period with the assist going to senior captain Dana Wensberg to which St. Joes answered with a goal of their own, to end the period at 1-1.
The Wave went on fire in the second period, scoring two goals in just 56 seconds. The first was a dangle from nifty senior Jack Knowlton. The second, coming 18 seconds later, game from junior Robbie Juterbock who had an equally earth-shattering bury with the assist coming from junior Owen Koorbusch and senior captain Trent Bergin.
Darien really took the lead when junior Dillon Fitzpatrick had an unreal snipe on St. Joes goalie just 5 minutes later in the game, making the score 4-1 with the assist from sophomore Jack Pardue. Knowlton got his second goal of the game late in the second with the assist from Watters.
St. Joes tried to make a comeback in the game, scoring the only goal of the third period, but it was not enough to stop the momentum of Darien. Senior goalie Michael Collins finished the night with 29 saves as he continued his all-state worthy season last Saturday.  
Come check out Wave Puck (3rd) take on reigning champions Notre Dame of West Haven (2nd) in the state semi-finals at Yale University’s Ingalls Rink on Wednesday, March 13th at 7:30pm. The bomb squad will be going blackout and ND West Haven expects a big crowd. So, fellow Wave Puck fans: get ready to get rowdy.

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