Some birthday luck and a strong team effort gave Grand Island its third win in as many games on Monday night as the Vikings defeated St. Francis 4-2 for the second time this season. The first win came just last week, and Grand Island expected last week’s game to carry into Monday.
“It’s always gonna be a tough game any time you play someone the second time,” coach Bob Simpson said. “It’s gonna get tougher because you build that little bit of rivalry, and you hit that one guy and he remembers you.”
“We expected them to come out harder because we beat them last time and they were [ticked] off at us because they think they’re the better team,” said sophomore forward Parker Morrow. “So we just came out as hard as we can, and we came out with the win.”
Maybe St. Francis was tired — Monday’s game was the Red Raiders’ third game in three days — but the Vikings felt that their opponent didn’t come out as hard as they expected.
“Especially after last week, I thought they were gonna come in hot and ready to play, but they didn’t really do so,” said Mike Mankowski.
“We expected them to come in nice and hard,” Simon Pannullo said. “Thought they were gonna come out and play like they played last game. Weren’t expecting them to come out soft like they did. Played three games before us, three straight days, so that kind of settled the pace down for us.”
The Vikings did what they could to take advantage of any fatigue the St. Francis players might have been playing, and it seemed to work as Pannullo and Mankowski both scored in the first period to give Grand Island a 2-0 lead. Pannullo’s goal came first, which was only appropriate as he celebrated his birthday on Monday.
But he didn’t even realize he’d scored.
“Couldn’t tell you how it went in,” Pannullo said, but he tried his best to explain the goal. “I just threw it at the net. Went off the defense and off the leg, off the goalie, and in. To be honest, I was skating off the ice just to get off, and everybody started cheering.”
Pannullo’s goal came on the power play, which has been a point of success for Grand Island as of late; it was the fifth power play goal in three games. The Vikings were one-for-two on the power play Monday night. With limited opportunities, Simpson was happy with one.
“The refs let a little bit go, and it was a really high-paced game, not a lot of penalty kills for us either, so we were still one-for-two, which was good,” he said. “And just concentrating on getting pucks to the net, and good things are gonna happen with that, and that’s what happened.”
In the second period, St. Francis cut the Grand Island lead in half with Braden Latt’s fifth goal of the season, and Simpson was surprised the Red Raiders didn’t get more in the period.
“When we were in that second period there and it was two-one and we were in our zone for five minutes, I looked at the coach and I said, ‘If we get out two-two, that’s gonna be lucky for us,’ because they were just all over us,” Simpson said.
But luck seemed to be on the Vikings’ side when, late in the period, Colin Bellinger scored on a 2-on-1 to give his team some cushion.
“We got a bounce and went down on a 2-on-1 and took advantage, and all of a sudden we’re up three-one going into the third,” Simpson said. “We knew it was gonna be a tough game and they played great, and we capitalized.”
Morrow added to the lead 5:19 into the third period, and he was quick to credit his teammate Zach Valvo for setting him up. He also felt lucky that the puck actually made it into the net.
“Really it was all Zach Valvo,” Morrow said. “He passed it up to me. I took it up from our zone, and I actually whiffed on the shot. Luckily it went five hole and it went in. Feels real good to get the goal, but I guess it just gave us, like, ‘Oh, we’re up four-one, we’re good,’ and calm it down.”
St. Francis’ Joe Krasinski scored with just over a minute left in the third to make the score 4-2, but it wasn’t enough as Grand Island came away with its third straight win.
It hasn’t all been luck for the Vikings, as junior defenseman Will Hughes explained. The young team has worked hard to get to where it is now.
“The team’s been playing good, moving the puck well, and they’re keeping up the pressure, and we’re starting to get our chemistry together,” Hughes said. “There are a lot of sophomores, and they’re playing very well and showing up to play.”
Three straight wins, especially after losing three straight just before that, was a confidence booster for Grand Island, as one of those sophomores explained.
“That’s the first time we’ve gotten three games in a row,” Morrow said. “We lost three in a row, so getting three wins in a row feels real good.”
“We lost three one-goal games, which was just heartbreaking,” Simpson explained. “It really moved us down. I looked at Coach Pray and I said, ‘We got a chance here to string some in a row. Every game’s gonna be tight.’ And we did that.”
“It’s very important to us because we started off slow in the season — win, loss, win, loss,” Mankowski said. “But to get three in a row, it was really nice to finally get winning again.”
Grand Island’s next challenge comes Thursday night against Williamsville South. The Vikings are aware of the skill of the Billies and what they’ll need to do to have a chance at winning four in a row.
“Now we face Will South, and it’s gonna be tough because they’re playing real good,” Simpson said. “Their good guys are really good. We gotta work on just trying to limit their time and space out there, and that’s tough to do when you got skilled guys like [Jeff] Browne out there and [Alex] Fix and [Mason] Cool. They got some guys who can play, so it’s gonna be tough.”