HALLOWELL — Less than 24 hours after its ugliest loss of the season, the Cony/Hall-Dale/Monmouth boys hockey team posted its most impressive.
Jacob Godbout scored a pair of goals Thursday afternoon in a rescheduled matinee and sophomore goalie Matty Shea made 30 saves, including 16 in the third period, as the Rams handed rival Gardiner a 3-2 loss in a Class B North game at Camden National Bank Ice Vault. The game had been originally slated for Saturday afternoon before a gas leak inside the arena postponed the contest.
“We got the puck to the net,” Cony’s Tyrell Sousa said. “We’ve been blaming each other lately for mistakes, and today there was none of that. We’re finally coming together as a team. I think we’re starting to go now.”
The turning point came before the midway mark of the second period, when Cody Rizzo scored the first of his two goals at the 4:57 mark to open the scoring for Gardiner (1-1-0). But Godbout responded for Cony (3-2-0) less than two minutes later, beating Tiger netminder Max Dearborn (24 saves) five-hole from the left circle.
For a team that had been beaten 8-2 on the road at Kennebec the night before, it was just the lift the Rams needed.
“It rejuvenated us fast,” Cony coach Shawn Johnson said.
Godbout, a sophomore, got his second at 9:22, turning a Tiger turnover in the neutral zone into a goal off the rush.
Gardiner, hampered by both penalties and ineffectiveness through the first 30 minutes, turned up the pressure in the third period — but not before Cony finished the day 2 for 6 on the power play, the second of those coming from Sousa for a 3-1 lead at 5:42.
It was just the second shot on goal of the period for Cony in a frame that saw Gardiner outshoot the Rams by a 17-6 margin. The Tigers had just 15 shots through the first two periods.
“We came out flat in the third period, and they put the pressure on us,” Sousa said. “We found out that the game’s not over until it’s over. We gave some pressure right back and came out with it.”
Rizzo netted another on a wraparound at the left post to cut the Gardiner deficit back to one with 6:17 remaining, but Shea held the fort the rest of the way.
A deflected shot from Rizzo scraped off the crossbar, and Shea posted point-blank stops on Sean Michaud and Jake Weston in the final four minutes to preserve the win.
“We didn’t work hard enough in front of the net,” Gardiner coach Tyler Wing said. “We tried to get that extra step, that extra handle on the puck, instead of just shooting the puck on the goalie and crashing the net like we should be. Hard work pays off, the fancy doesn’t. We’ve got to play hard-nosed hockey.”
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