 (Photo by Bill Allen/NJ SportAction) UNDER PRESSURE: Princeton High star goalie Shane Leuck fends off a shot in action last winter. Last Friday, Leuck made 15 saves but it wasn't enough as PHS fell 7-3 to Steinert in the season opener for both teams. The Little Tigers will get a chance to avenge the loss when they play the Spartans on December 11 at Hamilton's Ice Land rink. |
Things came pretty easily at the outset for the Princeton High boys' ice hockey team last Friday night as it opened the 2006-07 season.
The Little Tigers scored two goals in the first five minutes to jump out to a 2-0 lead over defending Mercer County Tournament champion Steinert.
For that five-minute stretch, PHS looked like it might follow in the footsteps of last year's team which roared out of the gate with an 11-0-2 record.
But using mainly two lines up front and dealing with a shortage of defensemen, PHS couldn't hold its lead as the teams battled on a slushy rink at Mercer County Park.
Steinert narrowed the gap to 2-1 on a late first period goal and then outscored PHS 3-0 in the second to take control of the contest. The Spartans scored three more goals before PHS finally got back on the board with a Kyle DeBlois tally to make the final score 7-3.
PHS head coach Paul Merrow wasn't fooled by his team's hot start. "It was adrenaline at the beginning of the season," said Merrow, who got goals from senior star John Ryan and sophomore Jonathan Yi in addition to DeBlois. "We got a quick goal; then we got another quick one. The adrenaline wore off. With the numbers that we have, we just ran out of gas."
In assessing his team's loss in the opener, Merrow said his team needs to talk more on the ice. "It's a communication thing," said Merrow. "We have never been a good team at communication with each other. We made some mistakes that cost us; we gave up two short-handed goals."
With star defensemen Brad Carduner and Justin Faulkner having been lost to graduation, Merrow knows he will have to do some juggling along the blue line.
"I had Peter Teifer playing defense and I had Geordie Graham back there," said Merrow, whose top returning defensemen are senior captain Christian McCracken and senior Colin Serafin. "Peter Miller is out sick right now."
The Little Tigers will need star senior goalie Shane Leuck to be sharp. Merrow, for one, is confident that Leuck can keep a cool head.
"I don't think he's under any extra pressure," asserted Merrow of Leuck who had 15 saves in the loss to Steinert. "Some of the goals tonight were not his fault from a team standpoint. From a positional standpoint, he could have been bigger and stood up."
Merrow was looking for his whole team to stand up as it deals with its lack of defensive depth. "I told them in the locker room before the game that it's just one game," recalled Merrow, who guided PHS to a 16-8-2 mark and the round of 16 in the state public tournament. "I told them to give it all they had and to give it their best effort. We're short-handed and we know that. We held on for a while."
While Merrow was disappointed by the result last Friday, the longtime head coach was able to put things in perspective.
"The team is upperclassmen; the majority of it," said Merrow, whose team gets a rematch with Steinert when it plays the Spartans on December 11 at Hamilton's Ice Land rink.
"I think we can bounce back and clean things up. What we told them to do and what they did were two different things. We tried to be fancy out there; you just couldn't be fancy out there. We told them to dump it in the corner and get it out to the point."
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