Newtown, Conn., Explodes for Seven Straight to Top Mount Everett

SHEFFIELD, Mass. -- For 29 minutes Saturday, the Mount Everett hockey team was locked in a dogfight with visiting Newtown, Conn.

 

Then, for the Eagles, the game went to the dogs.

 

Newtown scored with 17 seconds left in the second period to break a 1-1 tie and added six unanswered goals in the third period to take an 8-1 win at the Berkshire School.

 

"We just came out flat in the third period," Mount Everett coach Aidan Gilligan said. "I think we're conditioned well enough to do better than that. We were a little flat."

 

The Nighthawks scored three goals in four minutes to start the third, forcing Gilligan to call a timeout to try to stem the tide.

 

"It was just a matter of competing and matching the intensity that Newtown came out with in the third," he said. "They did a good job of hustling to the loose puck, and we kind of glided.

 

"So we just reiterated that: Let's match the intensity on the ice and have a little more aggression out there."

 

Newtown came out firing on all cylinders in the first period.

 

The visitors won the opening faceoff and rang a shot off the crossbar just seven seconds into the game.

 

And 37 seconds in, Newtown's Philip Makris scored on an odd-man rush to give his team a 1-0 lead.

 

But the Eagles settled down from there, eventually earning a 6-4 advantage in shots on goal over the first 15 minutes. In a one-minute stretch midway through the first frame, Aidan Engel and Dylan Boomsma each fired a shot on Newtown keeper Adam Kliczewski (14 saves).

 

After a brief break between the first two periods, Mount Everett carried its momentum into the second, tying the game when Cooper Shepardson set up Boomsma for the equalizer in the 19th minute.

 

It stayed 1-1 nearly until the end of the second, but in the closing seconds, Matthias Paltauf passed out from the back boards to an open David Brestovansky, who finished for the eventual game-winner.

 

Seventeen seconds later, the teams went to the locker room, where Mount Everett had a good long time to think about how the Nighthawks were able to jump back on top.

 

"That's always a killer when you have one go in at the end of the period, heading into the locker room," Gilligan said. "Then they came out, and the same exact thing to start the third.

 

"That was a little bit, at the end of the second, we had some tired legs that led to that goal a little bit."

 

It took Newtown just 32 seconds of the third period to pad its lead. Markis scored off a turnover in the neutral zone to get the second of his three goals and make it a 3-1 lead.

 

Palauf scored a pair of goals, and Brestavansky got his second of the game before the onslaught was over.

 

After earning a narrow 12-11 advantage in shots on goal through two periods, Newtown outshot the Eagles, 21-6, in the third.

 

Cole Duval finished with 25 saves in the loss.

 

Mount Everett will look to get back in the win column on Wednesday when it hosts South Hadley.