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Tanners dominate Marblehead

Thursday, January, 03 By Jean DePlacido
Correspondent

After the first period, Peabody hockey coach Mark Leonard was afraid he was watching the Tanners continue a bad habit they have picked up early this season.

Peabody totally dominated play in the first period against Marblehead last night, but clung to a one-goal lead. Leonard's speech during the first intermission was enough to get things going, however, as the Tanners came out flying, scoring two quick goals on their way to a convincing 8-2 victory at the McVann-O'Keefe Rink.

"All year long we've been letting teams hang around," said Leonard. "We got up by two early, but in the last five minutes (of the period) made some mistakes that I wasn't happy about. They responded to the message and came out fast. In this league I'm finding out there are no easy nights."

The first line of Elijah Cohen, Matt Rodgers and James Noftle led the attack with three goals. Rodgers had a pair to up his total on the year to eight, and Noftle picked up three assists to increase his team-leading point total to 18. The second line of center Zack Brown and wings A. J. Parker and Andrew Bucci accounted for two goals while the third line had one. The Tanners' speed and accurate passing made the biggest difference.

Peabody senior captain Pat Yeo scored his first of the season when he deked Magician goalie Aaron Reny for a short handed tally, and fellow captain Taylor Shalin notched his first of the year in the five-goal middle frame.

"It's not just our first line that can score, but our second and third are starting to pick it up also," said Yeo. "It was a relief to get two quick goals to start the second period because even though we had a lot of opportunities in the first we weren't finishing off. Coach was pretty mad about it and said we had to pick it up. We started out playing the way we wanted to, but then got away from our game plan when Marblehead scored."

The combination of Noftle to Rodgers accounted for goals on the first shift of the first and second periods. The Tanners had two power play goals and a short handed score. They put four unanswered goals on the board in the middle period before freshman Alex Whitmore's unassisted tally for Marblehead. But with one second left in the period Noftle set up Cohen for a power play score.

"After that first period we tried to make some adjustments, but we continued to make the same mistakes," said Marblehead coach Bob Jackson. "I thought our goal at the end of the first period (by defenseman Ben Koopman) would be a mental boost, but then Peabody got two right away. Whitmore had a very nice goal, and that whole freshman line (Chris McLeod, Whitmore, and Justin Levine) worked very hard.

"We're a young team with eight freshmen dressed and only two seniors, but that's not to make any excuses. We need to step up. Peabody is a very, very good offensive team, and we tried to take away their speed as well as time with the puck. Maybe we were a bit intimidated by their size, but for whatever reason we didn't do a good enough job. It didn't help when we lost one of our best players, Anders Gundersen (concussion)."

Reny, Marblehead's junior netminder, faced a shooting gallery in the first two periods (20 saves) before giving way to freshman Tony Cuzner for the third.

"I don't fault Aaron for those goals," said Jackson. "A lot were on rebounds, and we just didn't do a good enough job picking up the open man in front of the net. Cuzner is coming along nicely and pushing Reny for the job. I believe we have two good goalies."