RallyNorth.net

Wed, Jan 23, 2008 07:00 PM @ Rockport

Team	1	2	3	Final
Trinity	0	1	1	2
Rockport	0	0	0	0

Rockport can't find offense, falls to Trinity Catholic

Thursday, January, 24 By Nick Curcuru
Correspondent

It was the same old story for the Rockport hockey team in yesterday's game against Trinity Catholic.

The Vikings got a solid effort all-around with good defense and goaltending, but could not seem to find their offense in a 2-0 loss at the Dorothy Talbot Rink.

The Vikings (3-6-3), have struggled offensively all season long, scoring just 34 goals through 12 games, and 14 of them have come in two games against Lynn Tech. The lack of offense has led to the Vikings dropping a number of close games.

"It's really frustrating," said Vikings captain Chris Ferrante of his team's offensive woes. "We go out there and give our best effort but we just can't seem to get the lucky bounce to go our way. "Our problem is that we aren't shooting the puck on net, and when we do shoot it on net we don't crash the net. We need to stop trying to make fancy moves and focus on putting shots on goal."

Vikings head coach Mike Greel echoed Ferrante's sentiments that they are getting too fancy and need to shoot more. The Falcons outshot the Vikings 30-17, and Greel also said he believes the team needs to change their mind set offensively.

"We need to get into a mind set to go out and attack the net," Greel said. "We are taking too much time getting to the net and by the time we do get there we don't have a scoring chance anymore."

After a scoreless first period, Trinity Catholic got on the board four minutes into the second frame when Justin Poulos broke in alone and beat Vikings goalie Bryan Greel to make it 1-0.

The game would stay 1-0 until there was five minutes to go in the game when Anthony Krates put one top shelf to make it 2-0.

Greel kept the Vikings in the game with his play in net. The senior captain made 28 saves and thwarted numerous scoring chances. Greel's best stop came midway through the second period when he made a sprawling glove save to rob Trinity's Kevin McAdam.

Despite the defeat, Mike Greel was pleased with his team's effort.

"In the past we would lose to a team like that 6-0," he said. "We had a good competitive effort tonight. Overall we were pretty lucky in our end and unlucky in theirs."

Greel credited Clayton Morrissey, Cam Smith, Adam Clay and Ferrante for their play and said that they had a little extra hop in their step.

The Vikings now face an uphill battle to make the state tournament. They need nine points in their final six games to qualify, which means they can finish no worse than 4-1-1. The Vikings know they need to step up and are motivated to still have a shot.

"We will have to play our absolute best," coach Greel said. "We have to win just about all of our games now." Ferrante agreed that Rockport has to put forth its best performances.

"We have to start winning games plain and simple," Ferrante said. "We're running out of games, especially home games. We need to step it up."