Curry’s up-tempo offense allowed the Colonels to skate away with a decisive 8-2 over host Geneseo Friday. Bill McCreary had two goals and an assist to pace Curry, which led 4-0 by the midway point of the contest and never looked back.
“We were short some key players in our last game (a 3-2 loss to Mass-Dartmouth), which required us to play big-ice hockey, and that worked for us tonight,” said Curry coach Rob Davies. “We were able to spread the ice and get good scoring chances.”
Curry opened a lead it would never relinquish just 15 seconds into the game. George Cademartori put a feed from Ricky Helmbrecht past Geneseo goaltender Derek Jokic to make it 1-0. Things would stay that way until late in the period, when McCreary got his first of the game on a wrist shot that hit Jokic’s glove and glanced into the net.
As they had in the first period, the Colonels scored early in the period when McCreary struck again, this time on the power play on a wraparound after a scramble in front of the Geneseo net. This one came just 32 seconds into the second period.
“When you give up goals early, it makes for a long period,” said Geneseo coach Chris Schultz. “We’re not used to the style of play we saw tonight. Our guys were too cautious at times. We would have possession of the puck but they would turn their winger, and we’d react to that and get nervous even when we had the puck.”
“We were able to spread the ice,” said Davies. “We had good speed tonight. We call it ‘controlled chaos.’ We take a lot of penalties this way, and we’re working on that, but some of that comes from this style of hockey when guys get too anxious.”
Curry made it 4-0 at 9:19 when a turnover at the Geneseo blueline send Trevor Spiridi in all alone. He beat Jokic glove side to extend the Colonels’ lead.
Schultz used his timeout after the goal, and the Ice Knights responded just 42 seconds later. With the man advantage, Chris Kestell got his third of the season off a feed from Mitch Stephens to make it 4-1 Curry. But the Colonels scored twice within a 33 second span a few minutes later to put the game away. Jonathan Whitham tallied at 14:03, and Steve Murphy followed at 14:36. Jokic was pulled after the fifth Curry goal, yielding to Jeff Pasemko.
Geneseo would get its final goal of he game with 1:41 left in the second as Kestell and Stephens again hooked up, again on the power play.
Curry scored twice more in a chippy third period, with Ross Enmark’s goal at 4:12 and Spiridi’s second of the game at 8:41.
Shots on goal for the game favored Geneseo, 27-26. Colonel netminder Zach Cardella made 25 saves for the win.
“Zach made three or four great saves for us,” said Davies. “He made the saves he had to make early in the game.”
Curry improves to 6-2 on the season and travels to Hobart on Saturday. Geneseo falls to 9-5 and hosts Skidmore on Saturday to close out the 2006 portion of its schedule.
“It’s a big game for us,” said Schultz. “Nobody wants to go into the (holiday) break on a loss.”
