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Sports

Raiders Put Up Fight Against Dayton on Ice

The team falls to 1-13 for the season.

The Scotch Plains-Fanwood Raiders ice hockey team took an early lead on Monday night against the Jonathan Dayton Bulldogs, but they could not hold on and lost in the third period, 2-1.

Neither team was getting many shots off early in the first period and a one-on-one shot was stopped by Dan Dubeau of Dayton two minutes into the game, which revved up the Bulldog crowd. For most of the rest of the first, the Raiders and Bulldogs were charging back and forth and getting stopped every time.

But a breakaway by Eddie Logie of Scotch Plains gave the Raiders the lead with 58.4 seconds left in the first period.

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Springfield was out-shooting Scotch Plains, and after the first period the Bulldogs had taken nine shots to Scotch Plains' two. But it was the Raiders who held the lead going into the second period, 1-0.

The Bulldogs came out firing in the second, controlling the puck for most of the period as they had in the first. Despite dominating the puck for the first half of the second period, Dayton was still losing. The Raiders goalie, Jason Breit, was making stop after stop, not letting the Bulldogs tie the game without a fight.

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Both teams seemed to be hitting considerably harder in the second period as well, taking out their frustrations with hard checks and between-play shoves.

The Raiders were holding off the Bulldogs' attack toward the end of the second period as well, but with less than one minute remaining in the period Brian Camp of Dayton scored with assists from Matt Neubauer and Mark Vax, tying the game at one.

"I was trying to get the team going, and it worked," said Camp.

The Bulldogs were still out-shooting the Raiders in the second period, and again Dayton had nine shots, making 18 total for the first two periods. The Raiders had only taken one shot in the second, bringing their total to three.

The third period looked a lot like the first two, with Dayton controlling the puck and taking most of the shots, but with Breit fending the Bulldogs off.

The turning point of the game came with a penalty against Scotch Plains, giving Dayton a power-play that they were able to capitalize on, Neubauer scoring off a shot rebound to give the Bulldogs the lead with less than five minutes left in the game.

Scotch Plains had an opportunity to tie the game when Alex Markovitz took off on a breakaway and was fouled, giving him a penalty shot. He lined up for an opportunity against Daniel Dubeau of the Bulldogs, who waited in the goal as Markovitz took the puck in the center of the rink.

As Markovitz approached, Dubeau cut him off and got the save, preserving the lead for Dayton with less than four minutes remaining in the game.

"As soon as he came out I knew they would try to shoot low on me, and I hoped they wouldn't beat me up top, and they didn't," said Dubeau.

With just over a minute left Dubeau made two more saves to keep Dayton in the lead. The Raiders pulled their goalie and added an extra man on offense in the last minute, but it was not enough to come back and the game ended 2-1 Dayton.

With the loss, the Scotch Plains hockey team falls to 1-13. The Raiders' next match-up is against Arthur L. Johnson high school on Tuesday, Feb, 2 at 8:30 p.m. It will be played at Warinanco Park.

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