Belchertown Uses Special Teams to Beat Taconic
PITTSFIELD, Mass. -- For the Taconic hockey team on Wednesday, the four power-play goals it allowed were bad enough.
The short-handed goal was even worse.
Taconic entered the second period against Belchertown trailing 3-1, but the Orioles picked up their first two penalties of the game about a minute apart in the opening minutes of the period.
Taconic failed to score with 28 seconds of a 5-on-3 advantage, and then, one minute into the second penalty, Belchertown's Tom Daley scored his second goal of the game to make it 4-1.
Instead of cashing in a golden opportunity to make it a one-goal game, Taconic never got closer than two goals as Belchertown skated off with an 8-4 win at the Boys and Girls Club.
"It's a momentum change is what it is," Taconic coach Steve Terpak said. "Momentum is big in high school sports. And it was a momentum change for us.
"But we did dig deep and fight back. We never felt like we were out of the game."
In fact, moments after Daley made it 4-1, Shane Tierney scored from the high slot for Taconic.
But Belchertown scored the next three and kept the hosts at arm's length the rest of the way.
Special teams were a big factor in the game as Belchertown went 4-for-10 on its power play, and Taconic racked up 17 minutes, 30 seconds in the box.
Terpak was not thrilled with the penalties but neither blamed them for the loss nor his team for drawing whistles
"Being in the penalty box didn't hurt us tonight," he said. "We scored two goals a man down.
"But I agree [penalties don't help], and we've gotten better. We were pretty heavy on penalties early the season. We've gotten better with penalties. Almost every team we've played has had twice as many penalties as we've had on the score sheet. So I'm not unhappy with it.
"Our kids are trying hard. They're aggressive. And most of them weren't stupid penalties, so I'm OK with it."
Belchertown (3-4) scored on its first four power play chances, including two man-up goals in the first period after Taconic opened the scoring with a Kevin Quinto tally.
Two more power play goals fueled the 3-0 run that answered Tierney's tally to make it 7-2 midway through the second period.
With 1:43 left in the second, Quinto scored his second of the game with Taconic skating short-handed.
Taconic made it 7-4 midway through the third with another short-handed goal, this time by Brandon Peaslee on assists from Tierney and Quinto, but Belchertown answered less than a minute later.
Mike Schnopp made 22 saves for Taconic. Kyle Greene stopped 31 shots for Belchertown.
Taconic (1-6) hosts Sci-Tech on Saturday.