The William Tennent hockey team didn't make it easy to claim its third victory of the season. But the Panthers persevered, using a solid effort in their own zone to withstand a third-period charge to defeat Upper Dublin, 3-1, in an SHSHL crossover game Thursday at Bucks County Ice Sports Center.
The Panthers jumped out to a 3-0 lead on the Cardinals, but numerous penalties -- including a pair of five-on-three penalty kills and a match penalty to the Panthers' leading scorer -- gave the visitors plenty of opportunities to battle their way back into the game.
Though the Cards held a 30-22 advantage in shots, they could only beat sophomore goalkeeper Dan Deegan once as the Panthers held on for the victory.
"Penalties are always a concern with my teams," said William Tennent coach Nick D'Aurizio. "I harp on it as much as I can. It's unfortunate we do take so many penalties, but we're a work in progress."
It was Deegan and his defenders who stood tall on this night to hold off the charging Cardinals.
"We're playing thin on the blueline," D'Aurizio said. "We have one guy out for suspension, another guy out for injury, Matt Gehan is playing a little dinged up. So guys like Geehan and Jeff DeChristopher, Brent Bagdon, Jeff Mitchell, and we shifted back PJ Partington, who played both offense and defense -- those five guys really won the game for us along with Dan Deegan. Danny easily played the best game of his season so far."
"The defense played great in front of me," Deegan said. "Jeff Mitchell, Dalton Shields, everyone played really good defense tonight."
The Panthers, who were shorthanded twice in the first eight minutes of play, had just killed off a penalty when Clint Aussprung moved in and used a nifty move to beat Cardinal goalkeeper Zach Hanson to give Tennent the 1-0 lead.
The Panthers made it 2-0 on Gary Matyok's first goal of the season midway through the second. Matyok, who leads the Panthers with seven assists, netted his first with a nice move in close while the Panthers were shorthanded.
"It's great to finally get the first goal and hopefully open the floodgates," said Matyok, who squeezed the puck through the near-side. "I saw a guy's stick coming on me so I went back in toward the net and it found its way in."
The Panthers would make it a 3-0 game with three minutes left in the second period on a Mitchell shot from the point on the power play.
The Panthers, who had already been whistled for seven penalties through the first two periods, continued to hinder themselves with ill-timed trips to the sin bin. With tensions already running high following coincidental major penalties with six minutes left in the second, emotions boiled over five minutes into the third.
On a play behind the Cardinals' net, Aussprung was whistled for a high sticking violation, and began to mix it up with Upper Dublin's Steve Barbera. Aussprung threw a couple punches and was ejected from the game, in addition to garnering the high sticking minor and a fighting major. With Barbera assessed only a two-minute roughing minor, it gave the Cardinals a five-minute power play.
It took Upper Dublin just 12 seconds before Sam Etskovitz fired home a centering pass from behind the net from Tyler Peskin to make it a 3-1 game.
But, despite being shorthanded, missing key players and facing a fired-up Cardinal team, the Panther defense and goalkeeper stood tall. Deegan bounced right back and made a pair of impressive toe saves on quality Upper Dublin chances during the remainder of the power play.
"If I let up a goal and it's not a bad goal, it doesn't bother me at all," Deegan said. "If it's a bad goal, it'll bother me, but I let it go. That goal was difficult in the sense that I really wanted the shutout, but it's easy in the sense that we were still playing well, we were holding up strong, so I was motivated."
"It's tough when one of your top players gets a major like that," D'Aurizio said. "It really creates a void. But there were plenty of guys that stepped up to the challenge and we're lucky to have guys who are willing to do that. They really could have gotten down at that point, but they stepped up when it mattered."
The Cards had another scoring chance with three minutes left on a two-on-one rush, but Deegan stuck out a leg foil the shot. He turned aside 29 shots to earn his second win of the season. His counterpart made 19 stops for the Cards, including standing tall on numerous slap shots and making a stellar save on Bagdon attempt late in the third period.
"I really love games where there's 30, 40 shots," Deegan said. "I'm bored when they don't take any shots. And we got the lead early, which was fantastic. It takes the pressure off a little bit, gives you some fallback room."
The victory improves the Panthers to 3-7 overall, snaps a five-game losing streak and gives them momentum for a crucial stretch of games. Tennent hosts Abington in a National Division matchup at 7:15 p.m. Friday, then faces Upper Moreland and a home-and-home set against Neshaminy.
"It's very important that we just play our game, don't worry about the wins and losses and just play an all-around team game and go on from there," Matyok said. "We want to focus on the little things, and those little things will build and the wins will come."
"This was an extremely important win to help jump start us," Deegan said. "We got our confidence back, because we haven't won a game (since Nov. 17), so this is going to give us a boost through these next four or five games."
Upper Dublin 0 0 1 - 1
William Tennent 1 2 0 - 3
First Period Scoring:
WT - Clint Aussprung (Jeff DeChristopher assist), 7:21.
Second Period Scoring:
WT - Gary Matyok (DeChristopher assist), SH, 8:15.
WT - Jeff Mitchell (DJ Mulhern assist), PP, 3:06.
Third Period Scoring:
UD - Sam Etskovitz (Tyler Peskin, Ben Hoffmann assist), PP, 9:56.
Shots On Goal:
Upper Dublin 8 13 9 - 30
William Tennent 11 8 3 - 22
Goaltenders:
UD- Zach Hanson, 19 saves
WT- Dan Deegan, 29 saves
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