SP-F Ice Hockey Team Takes Positives Away from Westfield Game

Opening night of the 2009-2010 ice hockey season served as the perfect venue to see just how challenging it will be for a young Scotch Plains-Fanwood squad to be competitive on the ice this winter.

The Raiders know they have a long way to go, but there were some encouraging signs in Tuesday's contest against Westfield.

Although Scotch Plains was defeated by Union County Ice Hockey League rival Westfield 10-0 at the Warinanco Ice Skating Rink in Roselle, the Raiders hung in there as best as they could, with the score only 1-0 as late as four minutes into the second period.

"The whole first period, I think, was a positive," said Scotch Plains head coach Matt Gualtieri.

This is the fifth year of the program, the fourth year of varsity and the third year Gualtieri has been at the helm.

His Raiders managed to skate pretty evenly with Westfield for the first 15 minutes, despite being outshot 16-2 in the opening stanza. The play of freshman goaltender Jason Breit was the biggest reason Westfield led only 1-0 going into the second period.

Breit was active throughout the first period and on his game, making 15 saves, including several on tough point-blank shots where he was screened.

"In the first shift they got a goal and after that it was 0-0 the rest of the period," Gualtieri said.

Junior center CJ Meyer scored Westfield's first goal just 52 seconds into the game, with Dylan Moran and Henry O'Brien earning assists.

Scotch Plains did extremely well to kill a 5-on-3 - never easy to do - at the onset of the second period after the Raiders had two players sent to the penalty box to serve two-minute minors.

Westfield peppered five shots on goal during the two-man advantage, with Breit coming up big and making the saves on all five shots.

To keep the score at just 1-0 at that point was something Scotch Plains can take as a major positive.

Westfield was able to make it 2-0 at the 4:06 mark of the second period when O'Brien scored his first goal off an assist from Liam Devon.  

Then the Blue Devil shots started to go in after that as Westfield scored six more times in the second to take an 8-0 lead.

Westfield fired 25 of its 54 shots in the middle period.

"They're a good team," Gualtieri said.

Breit saved a total of 33 shots in the first two periods, while fellow freshman goalie Pat Foti made 11 saves in 12 minutes of play in the third period.

The Raiders finished with 11 shots on goal, with Westfield junior goalie Morgan Bungerz saving all of them for the shutout.

Scotch Plains realizes it has a lot of work to do and hopes to show improvement before the next time it faces Westfield in league play, which will be Jan. 13 at Warinanco.

 "We have a lot of areas where we have to improve," Gualtieri said. "When the game was close we had a couple of nice breakouts and were moving the puck well and those are some of the things we want to build on.

"Obviously, positioning-wise, we were running around a bit. They cycled the puck well. Once they got moving in the offensive zone we had to try to keep up with them.

"We had guys running around and they did a good job of expanding the zone and getting shots from the point and crashing in and our goaltender held us in for awhile."

Breit had the kind of performance that is uplifting for a freshman playing his first-ever varsity game.

"He played excellent and we couldn't ask for anything more," Gualtieri said. "We could see that it was starting to rattle him a little bit at the end of the second period.

"They scored seven goals in the period, even though you really can't blame him for many of those, and it's still tough for a goaltender to take, especially a young kid. We decided to take him out and let the other guy (Foti) get some time. We're coming right back with Jason on Friday, so we let him know that and let both goaltenders know what's expected of them. A 10-0 loss looks bad on paper, but we were happy with the effort because the kids tried."

Scotch Plains will be right back at it Friday at Union Sports Arena in Union, where the Raiders will face Summit in an UCIHL game that has a 4:10 p.m. starting time.

Summit began its season with a 2-0 league win over Dayton Tuesday in the game played at Warinanco before the Scotch Plains-Westfield contest.

Scotch Plains was the home team against Westfield and will be the visiting team against Summit.

Scotch Plains will then take on Johnson Monday night at 8:30 at Warinanco in a Cron Tournament contest. The Crusaders of Clark won their first Cron Tournament last year.

Johnson also won the UCIHL regular season and playoff titles last season. The UCIHL made its debut last year after Union County squads played in the three divisions of the former Central Conference.

NOTES: Scotch Plains lost to Westfield 7-0 in the first league game between the two last year, but bounced back to beat the Blue Devils 4-1 in their second league contest. Ed Logie, Danny Jones, Todd Wiener and Tyler Matthew scored the Scotch Plains goals in the win against Westfield.

Logie, a junior, is an assistant captain this year along with sophomore Andrw Skoog. The captain is junior Terrence White.

Scotch Plains then faced Westfield a third time in the quarterfinals of the league playoffs and hung in there before falling 3-0 at Woodbridge. Raider senior goalie Chris Bauer, who is now playing at William Paterson, did quite well to make 45 saves in that contest.

Scotch Plains' first win last year was a 3-2 triumph over Morris Hills at Mennen Arena in Morris Township. The Raiders will face the Rockaway School at Mennen again on Feb. 8.

Scotch Plains also defeated Cranford 3-2 at USA and its final win of the 2008-2009 season was a 3-2 triumph over Governor Livingston at USA. GL finished second in the league standings and reached the league's playoff championship game.

The Raiders finished 4-18-1 overall last season and in sixth place in the UCIHL with a league mark of 3-8-1 for seven points. Scotch Plains split with Westfield, Cranford and GL in league play.

Westfield finished third in the league standings last year with a 6-4-2 record for 14 points. The Blue Devils, who also reached the league's playoff semifinals, finished 10-10-2 overall and qualified for the Public A state playoffs, falling in the first round to Bergen County foe Fair Lawn.

2009 SCOTCH PLAINS-FANWOOD RAIDERS:

0-Terrence White, junior captain

2-John Lenart, freshman

3-Adam Terry, senior

4-Kyle Douglas, junior

8-Nick Gianni, freshman

9-Alex Markovitz, sophomore

11-Steven Rachko, sophomore

14-John Foti, junior

15-Shawn Zambri, senior

16-Jonathan Tomasulo, sophomore

17-Kevin Lewis, sophomore

25-Ed Logie, junior assistant captain

27-Andrew Skoog, sophomore assistant captain

33-Jason Breit, freshman goaltender

30-Pat Foti, freshman goaltender

2009-2010 SP-F SCHEDULE/Results (0-1):

Dec. 1 (H) Westfield 10, Scotch Plains 0 - at Warinanco, UCIHL

Dec. 4 at Summit, 4:10 p.m., Union Sports Arena, UCIHL

Dec. 8 at Johnson, 8:30 p.m., Warinanco, Cron Tournament

Dec. 19 Woodbridge, 6:20 p.m., Union Sports Arena

Dec. 22 Cranford, 8:30 p.m., Warinanco, UCIHL

Jan. 2 at Governor Livingston, 2:10 p.m., Union Sports Arena, UCIHL

Jan. 5 J.P. Stevens, 8:30 p.m., Warinanco

Jan. 8 at Woodbridge, 7:45 p.m., Woodbridge

Jan. 13 at Westfield, 8:30 p.m., Warinanco, UCIHL

Jan. 15 Dayton, 9:10 p.m., Union Sports Arena, UCIHL

Jan. 19 Colonia, 8:30 p.m., Warinanco

Jan. 24 Summit, 6:45 p.m., Union Sports Arena, UCIHL

Jan. 25 at Cranford, 6 p.m., Warinanco, UCIHL

Jan. 27 Governor Livingston, 5 p.m., Union Sports Arena, UCIHL

Jan. 29 at Colonia, 7:45 p.m., Woodbridge

Feb. 1 at Dayton, 8:30 p.m., Warinanco, UCIHL

Feb. 2 Johnson, 8:30 p.m., Warinanco, UCIHL

Feb. 8 at Morris Hills, 4 p.m., Mennen Arena

Feb. 12 at Bayonne, 7:15 p.m., Bayonne

Feb. 17 at Johnson, 6 p.m., Warinanco, UCIHL

2008-2009 UNION COUNTY ICE HOCKEY LEAGUE STANDINGS 

1-Johnson 10-0-2 (22 points) 20-2-3 overall 

2-Governor Livingston 7-4-1 (15) 15-10-2 

3-Westfield 6-4-2 (14) 10-10-2 

4-Summit 6-6-0 (12) 12-11-2 

5-Cranford 5-6-1 (11) 6-14-1 

6-Scotch Plains-Fanwood 3-8-1 (7) 4-18-1 

7-Dayton 1-10-1 (3) 3-17-1