Keeper and Quinto Lead Taconic to First Win
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — It is fair to say that for the Taconic hockey team this season, goaltending has been a concern.
On Saturday night, it was the cornerstone of a 7-1 win over Mount Everett at the Boys and Girls Club.
“We’ve really had a good three games in a row,” Taconic coach Steve Terpak said. “Even the coaches, the opposition, in the tournament we played in down in Springfield — all of them came up to us separately and said: We outplayed every team that we played. We’ve a hard time keeping it out of the net with the inexperience in goal.
“Considering we have such inexperience in goal, our goalie stepped up. We have been working so hard with the two goalies every single day, and it’s paying off. They are getting better every single day leaps and bounds, and we’re really counting that to have a solid second half of the season.”
Taconic won its first game of the season on Saturday behind 13 saves from keeper Hunter Phair and a six-point night from Kevin Quinto, who scored twice and assisted on four goals.
Phair’s bid for a shutout was spoiled with 3 minutes, 30 seconds left in the third period when Jake Corcoran scored an unassisted goal to make it 6-1.
While a 13-save night for a goalie whose team scores seven goals may not seem like a big deal, consider this is a Taconic team that started the season with a disheartening 12-5 loss at Wahconah — a game that was 11-0 in the third period.
Phair had the start in goal that night, too. But Saturday’s performance against Mount Everett showed just how far he has come in less than a month.
“All four coaches are taking turns with the goalies,” Terpak said. “Coach [Dennis] Murphy is a goaltending specialist. He does clinics for goaltenders in Springfield. He gives them specific drills to work on when he notices their weaknesses, but you can’t do it all at once. It’s a very difficult position, and their are specific moves they have to learn.
“Once they learn that one move, he moves on to another, and each coach takes turns watching them. … [Murphy] is a great asset to the team.”
So is Quinto, who had a hand in all but one of the Taconic goals on Saturday night.
That goal was the first one, which came when Andy Cella passed out of the corner on the left wing to Shane Tierney on the doorstep, and Tierney finished to make it 1-0 with just more than four minutes off the clock.
Quito scored his first goal on a rebound of a Cella shot with five minutes left in the first period.
Tactic added three in the third — from Brandon Peaslee, Steve Poripski and Quinto, who made an impossible shot from the goal line that deflected off the helmet of Mount Everett keeper Jonah Swotes (34 saves).
“I just went top shelf,” Quinto said. “I was aiming up there. It probably would have gone in even if it didn’t hit his helmet, but that’s just how it went.
Poripski and Peaslee each tacked on goals in the third period, assisted by Quinto.
Besides its offensive prowess and goalkeeping, another key for Taconic on Saturday was penalty kills. Mount Everett went 0-for-6 on man-up chances, and both of Quinto’s goals were short-handed tries.
“Power play, we just didn’t get many good looks,” Mount Everett coach Aidan Gilligan aid. “We were doing a good job of moving the puck, and we’d get low shots on the outside, which is what we’re trying to get to get rebound opportunities.
“And we didn’t do a very good job of going to the net to follow up those rebounds. A couple of them were sitting on the doorstep, and they just beat us to the puck. That was one thing we can take away from tonight: They did a very good job in front of the net on both ends of the ice. We got outplayed. That’s something we’ve got to do a much better job of, especially on the power play.”
Mount Everett is home against St. Mary’s on Wednesday night.
Taconic will look to carry the momentum from Saturday into next weekend's matchup against Woodstock Academy in Connecticut.
“We’ve been working hard all year, just getting unlucky," Quinto said. "We can’t keep the puck out of the net. Finally, everything just clicked. Our goalie, Hunter Phair, played the game of his life.”
“We know we’ve been playing some pretty good hockey, just a couple of tough bounces here and there. We knew one day it would come together. Hopefully, we can make a run from here and start winning some games."