It’s a rare situation when both Rye and Mamaroneck take the ice against each other with both teams desperately seeking a win to right their respective ships. But such was the case on Wednesday night, when the Garnets and Tigers squared off with just six victories between them. But in the end, it was the explosive output of the Garnets that proved the difference-maker, as Rye fended off a hearty challenge from the visitors to hand Mamaroneck a 6-2 loss.
The Garnets got things going early on, getting goals from Ivan Vatsuya and Dean Kim to jump out to a 2-0 lead in the first period, but Mamaroneck battled back in the second, getting an even-strength score from Jony Dobkin and a power play goal Matt Studdert to pull within one.
Rye’s momentum was stifled a bit by penalties, as the Garnets were short-handed quite often in the game, something head coach Peter Thomas said his squad needs to work on.
“We’re always telling them that every time they take a penalty, they’re reducing our chances of winning by like three or four percent,” said Thomas. “If you continually take undisciplined penalties and let a team hang around, it’s going to bite you, and for a while, Mamaroneck was knocking on the door.”
But despite the penalties, Rye—led by 18 saves from Owen Fitzgibbons—was able to turn away a number of Mamaroneck chances and got third-period goals from Seth Dorfman, Henry Bagley and another from Vasyuta to pull away with the 6-2 win.
“It seemed like we had the momentum but we couldn’t capitalize on a 5-on-3 and then they got another goal and that took the wind out of our sails,” said Mamaroneck coach Mike Chiapparelli.
With the loss, Mamaroneck fell to 3-12 on the year, with the majority of those losses coming against non-Section 1 teams. Rye, on the other hand, improved to 4-5. Thomas said the stretches of inspired play from his team should provide the Garnets a blueprint for what it takes in order to compete against the top area teams moving forward.
“When we execute the stuff we practice, we can look dominant, and we will have extended periods where we are controlling the puck in the other team’s zone,” he said. “But sometimes we fall into bad habits; we really need to just stick to our game and not deviate from that.”
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