December
4, 2003
March 21,
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| Tom Ryder's goal with 6:54 to play in the game gave Ridgewood the 2-0 lead that River Dell erased in the span of | |
HACKENSACK - It was his first game as a high school head coach and his first opportunity to make key adjustments in crunch time. With River Dell trailing by two goals with just over four minutes to play in its season opener, the Hawks' new head coach Brian Sharkey called a timeout and brought his team over to the boards.
Surely, there was something profound said in the huddle, right?
"Not
really. All I said was 'Go to the net," said Sharkey. "I told them to get
the rubber on the net and good things will happen."
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| Jason McDermott started River Dell's comeback with a goal at 11:24 of the third period. |
It may not have been the stuff of Knute Rockney, but it was certainly effective. Just 24 seconds after the timeout, River Dell's Jason McDermott snuck one in from just outside the crease to cut the Hawks' deficit to one. Fifty-one seconds later, George Siderias sent one through a screen from the point that found its way inside the near post as River Dell earned a 2-2 tie against Ridgewood in the season opener for both teams.
"Coach (Sharkey) said just to put everything on net and that is what we did," said McDermott, River Dell's senior captain. "I saw Joe Belger coming up the wing and kind of missed on his shot. I picked it up and got lucky that it went though the 5 hole. And once it did, I knew we find a away to get the second one"
The game
was also the first with a new team for the coach standing behind the other
bench. Larry Mahurter, who coached River Dell for 10 seasons before taking
over at Ridgewood (0-0-1) this season, had the emotions of coaching against
his former players for the first time thrown on top of the normal jitters
that go along with the first game of the season.
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| Brian Peacock (right) assisted on both Ridgewood goals. |
"I was there for 10 years, 10 great years, 10 successful years and I still enjoy the kids on that team," said Mahurter. "There were butterflies for a bunch of different reasons, but I am glad that I got it out of the way now early in the season. It was our opener, it was against my former team and now we can move forward."
As for the game, it was played cleanly with only three penalties handed out and only one power play awarded. That came late in the second period with the game still scoreless and Ridgewood mustered only one shot, a Scott Jaskot blast that found the midsection of Scott Meredith (20 saves) in the man-up situation.
But just
one second after the official end to the penalty, Jaskot took a pass from
Brian Peacock and put one on net that was deflected home by Ryan Mulholland,
who gave Ridgewood a 1-0 lead at 14:43 of the second period.
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| Joey DiCara played well as half of River Dell's first offensive pairing. |
Peacock also set up the Maroons' second goal when he slid the puck back to Tom Ryder then hustled back to his position in front of the net. Ryder let one fly, Peacock provided the screen and Ridgewood had a 2-0 lead with just less than seven minutes to play in the game.
But then River Dell (0-0-1) came charging out of the time out and proceeded to change the momentum. McDermott's goal came off assists from Belger and Siderias, who then scored the equalizer with just 2:45 to play in the game.
"It was
horrible. It was like a blur at the end and they scored back to back goals,"
said Peacock. "We played well, we listened to Coach (Mahurter) and played
his system, we just broke down in the last couple of minutes and they took
advantage of it."
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| Ridgewood's Ryan Mullholand (right) redirected a shot from the point for the game's first goal. |
Although the Maroons escaped with a point, giving back the late lead made the outcome feel more like a loss. On the other side, River Dell, which suffered through a 1-14 season last year after losing 12 seniors from the 2002 team, saw the result as a positive and now has something to build on.
"I feel good about this one. I am walking out of here feeling a lot better than I did when we were down 2-0 with four minutes to play," said Sharkey. "Hopefully what we will take from this is that we have to play with the same intensity from the drop of the puck that we played with in the last four minutes."
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