Knight ice hockey team falls to Hopewell Valley, 6-1
By: Bob Nuse
Tim Grable knows that in order for his West Windsor-Plainsboro North ice hockey team to win against the better teams it faces, the Knights need to play better than they did on Friday in the Titans Cup game against Hopewell Valley.
"They deserved to win and we deserved to lose," said Grable, whose team dropped a 4-1 decision in the game played at the Sovereign Bank Arena. "We expected it to be a pretty low scoring defensive game, but we didn’t play well on defense."
After a scoreless first period, Hopewell Valley scored three times in the second period to take control of the game. Matt Lalli scored for the Knights with just under 11 minutes left to play, but by that point the Bulldogs had taken control of the game.
With the win, Hopewell advanced to face Hightstown in the Titans Cup final Saturday at SBA. A year ago, WW-P North topped Hopewell Valley to win the first Titans Cup.
"It would have been nice to get back to the finals and have a chance to defend our championship," said Grable, whose team fell to 8-3-1 with the loss. "But we didn’t play our best game and we can’t do that against a team like Hopewell. We’ve had a couple other games this year where we didn’t play our best, but we were able to get away with it because it wasn’t against a team the caliber of Hopewell.
"It’s fortunate for us that we played this kind of game here and not later on in the Mercer County Tournament or the state tournament. It would have been nice to get back to the final, but it was a pretty weak title defense."
The Knights did get their usual great effort out of Jimmy Merrow in goal. The sophomore made 22 saves and was the reason North still had a chance during the third period.
"Jimmy had to bail us out a lot," Grable said. "We go into every game knowing what we have in Jimmy. He always gives us a solid effort and he did again this time."
When the two teams played earlier this season, North emerged with a 2-1 win. But this time the Knights didn’t get the same effort on defense, especially in the second period.
"It’s usually a pretty close game when we play Hopewell," Grable said. "It was 2-1 earlier this year and we played an overtime game against them last year and a 3-2 game in the county tournament. When we play them we have no margin for error and they were able to take advantage of the mistakes that we made.
"It wasn’t our best defensive game. But as long as we learn from it we’ll be OK."
With the Knights facing a tough stretch of games, Grable hopes his players learn quickly. The first test is a key game with Hightstown 6 p.m. Wednesday at Mercer County Park.
"The Hightstown game will be big for us for both the (Colonial Valley Conference) Valley Division and for seeding for the Mercer County Tournament," said Grable, whose team lost to the Rams, 6-2, earlier this year. "We played them the first game of the season and now we have them coming off a loss to Hopewell. So hopefully we’ll play well."
The Knights hope to play well enough to earn a good seed for the MCT. The cutoff for seeding for the tournament is Jan. 31. The state tournament qualifying deadline is Feb. 15.

