Mike Greco wasn’t supposed to play against Timon. He scored the game-winning goal. That earned him another game Friday night against Orchard Park. He doesn’t usually play on the power play. Friday he did, and he scored the game-tying goal with less than three minutes remaining in regulation.
St. Joe’s went on to win 2-1 with an overtime goal from Trevor Conschafter, and Marauders coach Rich Crozier was excited to tell the full Greco story after the win and admit that maybe he’d been wrong.
“When we went up to Mount St. Charles, we didn’t dress him,” Crozier began. “We were thinking about maybe not dressing him for a second game there before Timon. It was actually a pretty cool story. I pulled him out, I said, ‘Listen, you know, we’re gonna give another guy an opportunity,’ and he looked at me and he said, ‘Coach, I got some family in from California.’ I looked at him, I said, ‘Grecs, what do you know about me?’ He says, ‘Coach, I know you’re a good guy.’ I said, ‘I am a good guy. If you got family from California in, be ready to go tomorrow night.’ So then he gets the game winner against Timon. Like what do I know, right? I don’t know anything. Gonna sit the guy out, and he gets the game winner. He’s the only guy that can score against Timon.”
And on Friday night, Greco surprised again.
“I said to him after the game, ‘I’m really happy for you. Obviously I don’t know what I’m doing. You get that big goal. You keep scoring, I’ll keep dressing you.’ And then my assistant coach in the third, my defensive coach, he keeps yelling down, ‘I want more Greco! I want more Greco!’ So we threw him out on the power play. He normally doesn’t play on the power play. Again, maybe we don’t know what we’re doing because it’s a big power play goal to tie the game, and I’m really happy for the kid.”
Greco was certainly motivated by coming so close to losing his spot in the lineup. He took his coach’s instructions to heart and worked hard to play better.
“You always want to kind of go hard and do your best and try and kind of show Coach that your hard work is paying off,” Greco said. “It feels good to get that. Coach has always kinda been on me to work hard and go to the net, and when I’ve been doing that, it’s been working for me.”
Friday’s game was another example of why this season is so “fun and frustrating and stressful,” as Crozier put it: Orchard Park took an early 1-0 lead on a goal by Tyler Bienias, assisted by TJ Maloney, and for a while it looked like the Quakers might hold on for the win.
“If their game plan was to get as many whistles as they could and ice the puck and get a one-goal lead and then hold on for dear life, they came pretty close to doing it,” Crozier said. “I feel fortunate that we won tonight. Hats off to Orchard Park; it was a great game plan on their part. It was close.”
Mike Greco (#10) leads St. Joe’s to the bench to celebrate his game-tying goal.
Greco changed that, of course, with a third period power play goal. With 2:38 left in regulation, Greco took a pass from Jeremy Ienco and buried it.
“It was a great pass from Jeremy,” Greco said. “He got the puck in the corner. I just curled out a little bit to get to the back door. He made a great pass. I just had to tap it in … I was just in the right place at the right time.”
The Marauders’ luck seemed to change after that, and Conschafter’s game winner could be attributed partly to luck. He didn’t even see it go in the net.
“It was kind of a lucky goal,” Conschafter said. “[Jack] Attea won the faceoff, and I just took a backhand, and I didn’t know where the puck went, and I looked and it was in the net, so that was kinda lucky, but it worked out so we got the win.”
“He just kinda turned around and threw this backhand on net, off the post and in,” Crozier said. “It was like one of those things where I just felt like the hockey gods were with us because in this game, you need some luck too, and I don’t know why, but against Timon and again tonight, I just felt like we weren’t getting any bounces, like no bounces, and then that one off the post, that’s a big one.”
Crozier had good things to say about the goal scorer as well.
“Shafty, he’s great too,” Crozier said. “He’s a goal scorer. I love the way he was playing. He’s streaky, but he got a bunch of goals for us last year. If he doesn’t lead our team in goals, he’s right up there. He’s just got a way around the net. I really like the way he was playing, and I’m really happy for him.”
Trevor Conschafter (#26) celebrates after winning the game for St. Joe’s with an overtime goal.
They know there’s room for improvement, but the Marauders were happy to come out with the win on Friday night and carry that momentum forward.
“We didn’t play our best, and we have two more big games coming up this week,” Greco said. “So Coach kind of challenged us to be more offensive and try and do that, and we didn’t score as many as we wanted to or be as offensive as we wanted to tonight, but we found a way to win, and that’s what it’s all about.”
St. Joe’s defeated Pittsford on Saturday afternoon — Conschafter scored twice in the 4-1 win — and returns to league play Sunday night against Niagara Wheatfield.