A Hard Fought Win by RVC/Malverne Cyclones Ice Hockey Team !

With a North Shore/Locust Valley loss to Levittown earlier in the evening, the Rockville Centre/Malverne Cyclones Hockey Team became the last undefeated team in the Liberty Division with a 9-5 win over Plainedge on November 23rd at the Town of Oyster Bay Ice Arena in Bethpage. In a highly emotional game that was much closer that the scored appeared, the Rockville Centre team took a quick lead, gave it back, and then hung on with only ten skaters for the win.

Rockville Centre jumped out to a 1-0 lead at 13:58 into the game on a goal by Senior A.J. Sandorfi. Plainedge evened the score at 1-1 at 4:19 on the power play. Rockville Centre’s Jack Flatley answered back quickly with goals at 3:23 and 1:01 to bring the score to 3-1 and A.J. Sandorfi tucked one up under the cross bar with less than 0:01 on the clock to close the period at 4-1. That was the good news.

The second period saw Danny Porciello of Plainedge score three consecutive goals inside three minutes to tie the score at 4-4. However 21 seconds after the third goal, Freshman Brett Dougan backhanded a pass from A.J. Sandforfi to retake the lead at 5-4. As if that wasn’t good enough, Brett Dougan scored again 2 minutes later at 6:29 to take the Rockville Centre lead to 6-4. Unfortunately Plainedge wasn’t done either and scored again with 5:34 left and the period ended 6-5 in favor of Rockville Centre.

The third period opened with an obviously tired and tense Rockville Centre team of 10 skaters facing a better rested 15 skaters for Plainedge. Nonetheless, A.J. Sandorfi completed a hat trick with a goal at 13:54 to make the score 7-5. The rest of the period was defensive struggle for Rockville Centre with wave after wave of Plainedge forwards moving the puck in an effort to wear down Rockville Centre. Goalie Senior Jason Posner stood strong in the period and fought through many screens in order to see pucks. Brett Dougan scored his hat trick on a breakaway goal at 3:16 which forced Plainedge to use its time out and let the Rockville Centre fans chant “He’s a Freshman!” for about 30 seconds. The Plainedge fans were not amused.

While the game seemed to be well in hand, a penalty to A.J. Sandfordi at 1:25 allowed Plainedge to remove its goalie for an extra skater giving them a 6-4 man advantage. Senior Defenseman Sean Leavenworth corralled the puck in the end closest to the Rockville Centre fans at 1:02 in the period and threw the puck 200 feet into an empty Plainedge net to put the game firmly out of reach. After the goal, Leavenworth and the four other players on the ice turned to the right and celebrated the 9-5 score with family and friends located a few feet away and separated by an inch of Plexiglas.

Rockville Centre/Malverne’s next game is Sunday November 30nd at 7:00 versus North Shore/Locust Valley at Iceworks at 175 Underhill Blvd in Syosset.