The Davidson Cyclones senior men’s hockey team came within 20 minutes of giving themselves a good chance of securing a second place finish and first round bye in the Long Lake Hockey League (LLHL) playoffs last Tuesday, but then the wind shifted dramatically their opponent’s way.
Leading 4-2 heading into the third against the LeRoy Braves in a must-win game, the Cyclones would give up seven goals in the third frame to eventually lose 9-7 to the team they are trying to leapfrog in the LLHL standings. After the game, Davidson sat tied with the Braves and the Lanigan Pirates for second place in the league, with LeRoy having a game in hand. The Cyclones regular season is finished while both Lanigan and LeRoy have makeup games scheduled for this week.
“We probably didn’t finish the way we wanted to (against LeRoy),” said Jason Shaw, head coach of the Cyclones. “We worked hard to get up to 4-2, but then in the third period guys got tired and everything that (LeRoy) shot seemed to go in. It’s tough when you only have a limited number of players, but I thought our guys tried their best. It’s just that a few mistakes cost us.”
Shaw said the Cyclones “just ran out of bodies” against LeRoy. Forward Pat Cey, who is trying to make a comeback after suffering a wrist injury earlier in the month, had to shut it down after taking the warm-up and captain Derek Allan injured his knee in the first and couldn’t go in the second and third.
The Braves onslaught came early in the third and was prolonged. Braves forward Ryan McDonald scored his second of the game and first of three in the third at the 2:54 mark. Thirty-four seconds later the game would be tied at 4-4 on a shot by Pearce Gourley.
The Braves had all the momentum. They were hitting any Cyclone that dared touch the puck or enter their zone, but a meltdown on the power play could have cost them.
Cyclones forward Kevin Johnson wristed a nifty top glove side on Braves goaltender Nathan Unrau shorthanded once again giving the home side a lead at 5-4 just over five minutes into the third. This was short lived as the Braves continued to press and tied it up less than two minutes later on a weak shot past Cyclones goalie Brady Willner, who seemed to be fighting the puck all night.
Cyclones forward Steve DeSilva, despite struggling around the ice after taking a hard hit in the first period, scored his second of the game 20 seconds later on a nice bobbling puck play in front of the LeRoy net making the score 6-5 Davidson.
The Braves tied it up again just over two minutes later and took the lead for good three minutes after that, at the 13:49 mark of the third, on a power play goal by Devin Moore. The game could have easily been called here because the Cyclones were done. They couldn’t move up the ice without getting crunched by a Brave and when they did manage to get a shot towards goal LeRoy players sacrificing their body for the win blocked it.
To read more please see the January 28 print edition of The Davidson Leader.