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Sports

Dayton's Late Bid Upends SP-F on Ice

Breit shines again with 43 saves for Raiders.

For high school hockey, the third period was as intense as it gets.

Scotch Plains-Fanwood had been holding on to a tenuous 1-0 lead since the first period, with freshman goaltender Jason Breit doing his best impression of Martin Brodeur, but in the end, Dayton's pressure was just too much, scoring three goals in the final six minutes for the hard-fought 3-1 victory at Union Sports Arena in Union Friday night.

"We have the same amount of wins that we had last year and the year before already," said Dayton goaltender Dan Dubeau, who saved 20 shots on the night. "The way we came out in the third period, down 1-0, we came out and just played Dayton hockey, like we always talk about, and that's exactly what we did."

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"We're not disappointed at all," said Scotch Plains head coach Matt Gualtieri, whose team had enough players for just two lines. "After every shift, they came back, they were gassed. We hung in there as long as we could, even after they went up 2-1, we had a couple of good chances to tie it. We were tired at the end."

The Raiders took a 1-0 lead with 3:25 left in the first period on a goal by defenseman Jonathan Tomasulo, who drilled a shot from the point past Dubeau, who made several outstanding saves when his team was shorthanded to keep the Bulldogs within striking distance.

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"We played hard to the end," said the Raiders' Tomasulo. "It was a very hard game for all the guys. We're making progress. We started off with a bunch of really young guys, we started from square one and as the season goes along, we're getting better. Slowly but surely, we are making progress."

Despite the win, the Dayton coaching staff is looking for more discipline on the ice.

"We're taking too many penalties," said Dayton's first year head coach Andrew Trimble. "We take a lot of penalties, trips, slashes, the kids got into bad habits the first two periods, so we had to bench a lot of guys and started playing more freshmen for awhile."

The second period was scoreless, but not without its share of drama, as two of Scotch Plains best players were sidelined with injuries. Andrew Skoog left the game with a shoulder injury early in the stanza, while Steve Rachko was carted off with a knee injury late in the second, leaving the Raiders with just 11 able bodies to finish the game.

"We lost a couple of guys and I think that drained us a bit emotionally," said coach Gualtieri. "And even that extended rest between periods I don't think helped us. They were kind of psyched out after that."

After an ice cut, both teams had a chance to cool off, but they immediately turned the heat on in the third period, with Dayton ratcheting up the pressure.

But SP-F's defense was stellar, led by Breit in goal, along with Tomasulo, Terrence White, sophomore Kevin Lewis, and junior Kyle Douglas. The fab five held the Dawgs scoreless for the first 39 minutes of the game.

"They have a couple of big guys up front," Gualtieri said. "We knew Terrence would be a factor with his physical play and the other three guys move very well. We knew we could use their speed and lateral movement to try and force them to the outside and not let their big guys get through."

"I think we did a good job tonight" added Tomasulo. "They're a pretty physical team, we stood our ground, especially running four defensemen, you do get tired out there. We played through to the very end defensively."

Both goaltenders were strong and received some well-deserved accolades afterwards.

"Breit played a great game," Gualtieri said. "He's getting better every game, we're excited for the future with him, but there's only so much he can do. Their guy (Dubeau) played a hell of a game too. He made a couple of big saves, especially late in the third. When we were up 1-0, when we had a full bench, he still made a couple of big saves that kept it at 1-0. We could have gone up 2-0 or 3-0 a couple of different times. We'll tip our hat to him as well."

Even Dubeau had high praise for his nemesis.

"Right before we scored, I said, 'are we ever going to beat this kid, he's faced forty shots and hasn't given up anything,'" Dubeau said. "But I knew if we just kept firing pucks on net, sooner or later, one of them would bounce by him."

Dayton finally broke through when Brian Camp put one past Breit with 6:00 to play to tie the game at 1-1.

Two minutes later, Mark Vax scored off an assist by Jesse Krumholz to put the Bulldogs on top 2-1.  Mike Tarintula finished the scoring with his tally off assists by Jon Stern and Matt Neubauer to ice the 3-1 win.

"After their player got injured, it was the realization that the kids had stepped over the line, they needed to reign it in, and be better citizens on the ice," said Dayton's Trimble. "So we came into the locker room in the third period and said the slates clean, we've got to get one goal and build upon that. We killed off that first penalty in the third period and the kids were great, they fought to the end."

As for Scotch Plains, the key now is to stay positive.

"To have good coaching that is always with us no matter what happens, that's always a help in the locker room, the attitude, it's always good to have good coaches" Tomasulo said.

Dayton improves to 3-8 on the season, matching last year's win total with half the season still to play. SP-F fell to 2-9.

The two teams will meet up again on Monday February 1 at Warinanco Park in Roselle.

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