Fox Lane Edges the Bobcats With a Late Power-Play Goal
On a day when a dozen penalties were called in the first period alone, it figured that the latest hockey matchup between local rivals Fox Lane and Byram Hills might come down to which team would have the last power play.
As it turned out, it was the Foxes, who got a game-deciding goal from freshman Michael Gallary with just 73 seconds remaining in the third period and held on for a much-needed 4-3 victory over the host Bobcats late Friday afternoon at the Brewster Ice Arena.
“Huge, absolutely huge,” said Fox Lane coach Charles Berger moments after his players found a way to come out on top in a game they trailed after two periods. “We told the kids before, this is as close to a must-win as you can have at the beginning of the season. And, man, did they step up. I think it’s huge.”
For the Bobcats, the disappointing loss was their third in a row to start the new season. Goals in the second period by Jack Cohen and Will Cohen, and the stellar goaltending of Ben Sfarra, had enabled Byram Hills to hold a 2-1 lead heading to the final period.
“Fox Lane played a great game and they deserved the win,” said Bobcat coach AJ Cloherty. “We started for the second straight game taking five penalties in the first five minutes. Nobody deserves to win a hockey game when they’re playing with that level of low hockey IQ. I think we had one minute of five-on-five hockey in the first period.”
Shortly after the opening faceoff, Byram Hills found itself playing two men down. With just 14 seconds remaining on the second of the two penalties, the Foxes’ Jared Goldstein blasted a slap shot past Sfarra to stake Fox Lane to an early lead. But even though the Foxes had a whopping 17-5 advantage in shots on goal, the first period ended with the Bobcats still only behind 1-0.
“We knew we had to attack the goaltender a different way because he was stopping everything he saw,” said Berger after Sfarra had stood up to the first-period Fox onslaught. “That kid’s fantastic. So we got traffic and we got rebounds in front. That’s how we beat him.”
In the second period, the Bobcats were having all sorts of problems just getting out of their own zone before Jack Cohen changed the momentum and tied the game with 10:35 left. Just over two minutes later, with Byram Hills on a power play, Will Cohen tipped in the rebound of Jesse Rosenberg’s slap shot from the left point to give the Bobcats a 2-1 lead.
“Our players started playing our style of hockey,” said Cloherty when asked what changed in the second period. “They stopped running their mouths on the ice, they listened to Coach and me and they drew penalties because the refs were calling it tight. And we got the odd-man opportunities and we put the puck in the net. We put shots towards the net.”
But nearly three minutes into the third period, the Foxes were able to get even as a Jake Wollman shot from near the blue line trickled into the net in traffic through the pads of Sfarra. Just four minutes later, after they killed off a Byram power play, the Foxes regained the lead when Adam Maiorano scored on a rebound, assisted by James Nemeth.
The Foxes’ sudden one-goal lead lasted barely a minute. Byram Hills, with a five-on-three skating advantage, tied the game again on Lucca Conigliaro’s tip-in with 8:23 remaining. The score then stayed even for the next seven minutes until Gallary turned into the hero with his go-ahead, power-play goal for the Foxes with just 1:13 left on the clock.
“The kid who scored the game winner is a freshman,” said Berger. “It’s his first game playing with us. Fantastic kid and, man, did he pick that corner. It’s a designed play and he buried it. We got traffic in front so the goalie couldn’t see it and that was a great job. He was all the way up in the middle of the blue line. If the shot’s there, he takes it. It was there and, man, did he hit his target.”
The big goal by Gallary enabled the Foxes to win their third game of the season and wound up being the highlight of a brutal four-games-in-four-days stretch. It also left Byram Hills still searching for its first victory of the young season. Coach Cloherty is eagerly anticipating the imminent return from injuries by key players Ethan Behar, Mike DiMarco and Luke Gordon to get the Bobcats’ fortunes quickly turned around.
“Oh boy, at this point, Wednesday’s game (vs. Nyack/Tappan Zee) is a really big one for us,” said Cloherty. “Two of our three games have been very tight. We’re hoping we can be on the winning side of it come Wednesday.”
Andy is a sports editor at Examiner Media, covering seven high schools in the mid-Westchester region with a notebook and camera. He began there in the fall of 2007 following 15 years as a candid photographer for the largest school picture company in the tri-state area.
Read more of Andy’s full bio here.
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