Warriar, Scalise Key Taconic Win After Layoff
PITTSFIELD, Mass. – The Taconic hockey team has played just four games this winter, and it has allowed one or fewer goals in three of those contests.
Antonio Sclaise Wednesday stopped 33 shots to lead the Thunder to a 3-1 win over Southwick at the Boys and Girls Club.
Roshan Warriar scored a pair of goals, and Taconic won despite being outshot, 34-17, to improve to 3-1 in its first action since Dec. 21.
“We had a long layoff,” Taconic coach Matt Risley said. “It was kind of like our first game all over again. Guys had to get their legs underneath them.
“Antonio is a top-notch goalie. Thank God he was there, and thank God he was on top of his game.”
Taconic needed all Scalise could give in the first period, when the Rams outshot the hosts, 16-4.
One of the four came in the fifth minute, when Warriar put back a rebound to give his team a 1-0 lead.
Three minutes into the second period, Warrior lit the lamp again to put his team up, 2-0.
“It was a good forecheck out of me and Brayden Bishop,” Warriar said. “We won the puck, and he hit me with a pass. He took his guy wide, left me wide open with the goalie, and I just buried it.”
Risley knew that he could.
“Roshan’s a great offensive player,” he said. “Ironically, he just has to hit the net. And that’s my mantra, ‘Hit the net.’ We shouldn’t have been outshot there, but [Warriar] will tell you, my mantra is ‘Hit the net.’ “
Taconic had a chance to do just that and break the game open moments later when Alexander Jerebtsov was hauled down on a breakaway in the 23rd minute to give the Thunder its first power play opportunity.
But despite controlling the puck in Southwick’s zone for most of the man-advantage, Taconic was unable to capitalize.
“I thought our work in the zone was good,” Risley said. “We were moving the puck well. We just weren’t taking that last and final step of getting the puck to the net. We were passing around them. We were passing the puck really well. We just weren’t taking that final step.
“But, again, we had a long layoff. There was a lot of rust to knock off the skates. It’s always nice to knock the rust off with a win, and that’s what we did.”
Southwick finally scored late in the second period on a rebound to cut the deficit to one goal.
But that was all the offense Scalise allowed, making a number of stops on breakaways in the third period to preserve the lead.
The Rams pulled their goalie with 1 minute, 20 seconds left to play, and Rylan Padelford punctuated the win with an empty-net goal from his defensive zone with 20 seconds on the clock.
Taconic will get a little busier now with two games in the next seven days, starting with Saturday afternoon’s trip to South Hadley.