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Newburyport jumps on Triton early to take first of two meetings

Tuesday, January, 22 By John Shimer
Staff writer

In what has become easily the biggest River Rival game over the last five years, Triton and Newburyport played their usual slug-it-out, high-intensity hockey game yesterday afternoon.

After jumping out to a quick 4-0 lead, the Clippers barely hung on for a 5-4 victory.

Right out of the gate, the Clippers looked quicker, hit harder, and really found the soft spots in the Vikings defense, who looked as if they were a step behind on each Newburyport pass.

Less than five minutes into the period, Kevin Holmes got the scoring going after Gaven LaValley made a brilliant play to keep the puck in the offensive zone finding Collin Cusack in the right corner. Cusack found the open Holmes right in front of goal for an easy wrister goal.

Hooking up again, Cusack and Holmes worked their lethal passing around goal again. Only Kyle McElroy was the beneficiary of the end result as Holmes vision from deep in the left corner found the cutting McElroy for a perfect one-timer doubling the Clipper advantage.

Seconds later the two Freemans | Derek and David | made a great steal in the neutral zone to set up a two-on-one rush, which Derek McCoy finished off making the score 3-0 inside the first five minutes of the game.

Looking clearly the better of the two teams at even strength, Newburyport would allow the Vikings to get back in the game in the second period via the power play.

Things got worse before they got better for the Vikes as the Clippers padded their lead with their fourth goal. Following up his own rebound after Triton goalie Justin Joslin could not cover up the puck, McCoy finished off his second goal of the night.

Then came the Port penalties.

On their third try the Vikings finally broke through as Paul Bishop followed up Brice Linehan's shot to poke the puck home | 4-1 Clippers. Shortly after Linehan would have to leave with an injury to his hand short-handing the Vikings' defense.

The Clippers answered back taking what seemed to be a 5-1 edge after Gaven LaValley and Holmes combined on a lightning quick give-and-go. But, the referees waived off the goal in a controversial decision saying later that the puck hit the side netting instead of the back of the net.

With good fortune creeping on their side, the Vikings capitalized again on another power play. Taking the puck from Caleb Woodworth in his own defensive zone, Brandon Middleton proceeded to skate through the entire Clipper defense making several sensational moves before sending an off-balance wrister top-shelf.

Gaining momentum Triton would add one more before intermission as Craig White scored an unassisted goal and then the Vikings tied the score, 4-4, with 12:06 to go in the third period after Colin Robinson buried a Chris LeSage's rebound.

Colin's brother | Cam Robinson | had the chance to be the hero for the Vikings two minutes later stealing the puck short-handed to go in alone. But cool and collective freshman goalie Anthony Federico did not bite on any of Robinson's moves, stone-walling the back-hand attempt.

Still on the power play the Clippers' LaValley hit a shot that went through a lot of traffic in front of goal, and just squeaked through Joslin's pads to trickle home his first varsity goal and the game-winner.

"I'm extremely proud of our guys, we kept our mouths shut, played our hearts out, and didn't get caught up in all the other on-ice issues," said the disappointed Triton coach Kevin Dodier. "We really stayed disciplined and the guys on defense stepped up their efforts after we lost Brice (Linehan) in the second due to the injury."

Still heated about several of the controversial calls going against his team, Newburyport coach Paul Yameen said the penalties really allowed Triton to get back into the game. "Obviously we couldn't keep killing off penalties and expect to win," said Yameen, whose team had 10 penalties compared to the Vikings' seven. "We like to play a physical game and sometimes that hurts us, but when we had five-on-five we really controlled the game."

With a goal and two assists, Yameen said that Holmes has been one of the best players on the ice for his team since about the third game in the season. For Holmes, the win gave his Clippers bragging rights against one their biggest rivals, and got the team back on track after tough loss to Masconomet Saturday night.

"When we play against Triton, the game is like a state tournament atmosphere, everything is a battle," Holmes said. "The game got a little out of hand for us in the second period, but we kept digging, and it was huge to come out with the victory."