Tuesday night’s game was St. Francis’ third game in three days; Grand Island, meanwhile, hadn’t played a game in a week and hadn’t even practiced over the weekend. The Red Raiders’ momentum was no match for the well-rested and calm Vikings.
“We started slow and they started fast,” Grand Island coach Don Pray said. “So from that point on, I said, ‘Hey, let’s just concentrate on getting pucks deep, let’s get their defensemen to turn, let’s try to wear them down,’ and that pretty much was an effective type of systems in the first and second period.”
The Vikings are a relatively young team, and calmness in the face of adversity is one of the main things that Pray tries to teach his team. When St. Francis took the first lead of the game less than three minutes into the first period on a Dominic Galanti goal, Pray told his his team not to worry.
“We said, ‘Calm down, relax, there’s a lot of time,'” Pray said. “We’ve been talking a lot about adversity in games. We’re young; we need to learn to overcome that. Sometimes in hockey, bad things happen. Plays don’t go the right way, there’s bad bounces, and we’ve really been trying to stress, ‘Hey, stay calm, stay to the systems, stay focused, and stay disciplined,’ and that’s what we ended up doing in the rest of the first and second period.”
Austin Blair tied the game a few minutes later, and Parker Morrow gave Grand Island a 2-1 lead before the first period came to an end. Morrow’s goal came on a power play with less than two minutes remaining in the first, and the power play was a high point for the Vikings on Tuesday; they finished with two power play goals.
Braden Latt tied the game for the Red Raiders 7:03 into the third, but Grand Island had another power play just a few minutes later. St. Francis tried to prevent the Vikings from scoring the way they had in the first; the Vikings adjusted as well, and sophomore Thomas Cecere scored the game winner with another power play goal.
“We were definitely trying to work the pucks low,” Pray said. “We felt that they were pressuring out high. I think they adjusted to our first goal — we scored up top. Parker had a nice seeing eye dog slap shot right from the point there, and it went in the upper corner, so they adjusted and started coming out high. So on Thomas’ goal, we decided, ‘Hey, let’s try to work them a little bit lower,’ and that was effective right there.”
“We got the luck to have the power play, and we went over the power play before the third period, and it worked out and we scored on it,” Cecere said. “It was good to get the game-winning goal.”
Brandon Snyder had an assist on Cecere’s game winner and added a goal of his own with an empty netter with 25 seconds left to add some insurance and give his team some breathing room as the clock ran down.
“[It was] pretty nice,” Snyder said. “It’s not as intense at the end of the game.”
What will almost certainly be intense, though, is Grand Island’s next game. The Vikings are scheduled to play Sweet Home Thursday night, and the Panthers are currently tied for first place in Division 4. With senior goaltender Zach Farkas in net and a host of talented young players in front of him, Sweet Home is 7-3-1 in league play this season, including its current three-game win streak.
“We play a very tough team on Thursday night — Sweet Home, who I think probably is one of the most improved teams in the league right now,” Pray said. “They’re sitting on top of Division 4, and hopefully we can take the momentum of winning this game. But it’s gonna be a tough battle Thursday night. They got strong goaltending, couple shifty forwards — Matt Gademske stands out to me, that he’s playing really well up front. So it should be a good game; we’ll see what happens.”