Saturday - Long Island over Central 12-7 for Gold

July 28, 2007 - Central took the opening face-off with a technical win, but it didn’t help as neither team scored a goal on their first offensive possession.
  
With 7:57 remaining, Long Island attackman, Jeff Cohen received a penalty for slashing giving Central a man up. Tim Rommel drove to the cage, causing the defense to slide up which gave Rob Grimm an opportunity to come from behind the cage and catch a high pass for the open goal.
  
On the ensuing face-off Long Island won on a technical and took the ball down to their offensive end where Brian Smalley took a hard shot from the outside, goalie right, and placed his shot hip side off stick. During the next face-off the ball stayed loose for a number a seconds and key ground ball by Mike Poppleton gave Central the ball John Greely passed the ball inside to Zac Guy who took a step and shot the ball behind his back on a hard top shelf shot past AJ Fiore. Central took a 2-1 lead.
  
Long Island won the next face-off when Zach Pall picked up his own ground ball After a couple of time around the outside, Long Island’s attack struck again. Tom Palasek had the ball behind and looked to an open Connor English who was sitting on the crease waiting for a hard feed.
  
With the score tied at two, long stick Jake Smith of Central took the ball down and placed a hard shot on Steven Rastivo, but Rastivo came up with the save. On the clear attempt Central had strong pressure and forced Long Island to call a time-out to keep the ball. With less than 0:03 on the clock, Matthew Gibson backed the ball into the restraining line and after a plant and spin, put a blazing side-arm shot to the upper right corner. The first corner finished with Long Island ahead 3-2.

The beginning of the second quarter started with the assessment of a three-minute non-releasable stick penalty on Long Island attackman Jeff Cohen. Central began with the ball but Long Island defenseman Keenan Oschwat intercepted a pass by John Greely and took the ball all the way to the other side of the field and scored a point blank man-down goal for Long Island. On the next face-off Long Island won on a technical and quickly passed the ball back to the restraining line and Matthew Cannone. Cannone ran the ball straight to the cage to score Long Island’s second man-down goal.
  
Long Island won the next face-off and brought the ball down to their offensive end behind the cage to remove some time from the clock and release the penalty. Central’s Ryan Barber gets a flag down push and Long Island was even, but not for long. Just as Barber was being released, John Conneely received another flag for slashing.
  
Long Island was able to work out a double man-down situation and at 8:00 everyone was all-even. At 6:57, Central’s Rommel and Fetterly were assessed slashing and off sides penalties. Central worked out the first off-sides penalty but Long Island scored during the slashing penalty. Cohen and Gibson ran down in parallel towards the goal and Gibson passed the ball across to Cohen who took a hard shot from the twenty yard line.
  
Less than two minutes later Central scored taking the score to 6-3 in favor of Long Island. Central’s John Greely made his second assist of the game on a back to front feed to Luke Cometti. Cometti fired the blazing side arm shot stick-side high past Rastivo. Long Island scored again 0:40 later when Brian Smalley drove in from goalie left and shot stick side low on goalie AJ Fiore. Long Island was up 7-3 lead going into halftime. The last three minutes of the half were back and forth play with Long Island taking 2 shots (1 on cage) and Central taking 6 shots (3 on cage).
  
Central began the third quarter man-up as Jeff Cohen was assessed another slashing call at the conclusion of the second quarter. Only 0:25 into the quarter, Rob Grimm found Zac Guy on the opposite side crease. Grimm’s pass was low, but Guy dropped down and caught the ball at his feet and finished the goal to take Central to 7-4. On the next face-off Pall picked up his own ground ball and brought the ball down to Cohen.
  
Palasek took a shot that missed wide and Jeff Cohen picked up the ground ball and had a quick shot past Fiore. Long Island won the next face-off with Pall picking up another of his own ground balls. The next goal was at 6:49 as McDonough fed from the outside to Conneely on the inside during an extra-man opportunity.
  
The next face-off found Conneely picking up the ground ball and running down to the restraining line where he found Jeff Cohen open on the twenty yard line. Cohen placed a hard side-arm shot and scored his third of the game. Central won the face-off on a technical, but could not capitalize.
  
Long Island received an unsportsmanlike conduct and a crosscheck penalty and Central received an unnecessary roughness. At 4:09, Long Island was assessed a slash penalty but Central could not capitalize and lost the ball only 20 seconds into man up. After the clear, Central received a slashing penalty before the Long Island penalty was released. Central got the ball back and attempted to stall out their penalty.
  
With 2:20 remaining and Central stalling for the penalty the score was 10-4 Long Island. Three penalties were assessed At 1:55; an unsportsmanlike conduct for Long Island, a hold for Central and a slash for Central. Central got the ball after the penalties and scored as Greely stepped into the slot and scored. The score after three quarters was 10-5 Long Island.

Almost five minutes passed penalty free at the top of the fourth quarter before Mike Fetterly (Central) was called for slashing. Long Island’s Francis McDonough shot an outside side-arm into the upper corner at 6:01.
  
At 5:09 and after after two more Long Island penalties, Central’s Rob Grimm fed back to front to Zac Guy who scored his third of the game on double man-up. The ensuing face-off was won on a technical by Central and after going back and forth for a couple minutes, two more penalties were given, one for each team. An offside call (Fetterly) and an unnecessary roughness for Long Island. Central received the ball and Rob Grimm scored one of his own from a Greely assist. The final goal of the game was scored with 0:17 remaining in the game when Long Island’s Daniel Savage scored.
     
At the face-off Mike Poppleton and Zach Pall took all twenty of the draws. Each athlete was 10/20. Additionally eight draws were decided by technical, with each player winning four that way.
  
In the cage AJ Fiore played the entire game for Central facing 21 shots and recording 9 saves (43%). John Carroll and Steven Rastivo split time at the half for Long Island. Carroll faced 10 shots with 6 saves (60%) and Rastivo faced 9 shots with 6 saves (67%).

Overall the game was a great example of hard work and dedication. At the same time, it was a game that got out of hand. In the beginning of the game the penalties were few and far between, with the officials allowing the kids to play, but as the game moved on it became apparent that they were getting out of hand and that is when the penalties started to mount.
  
With this victory Long Island takes the Gold medal. The games on Sunday are still important to many teams in the running for the Silver and Bronze medals.
  

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