Games closer, but Vikes still perfect

SBHS gets off to a 5-0 start

By Michael Holcombe, Sports Writer
   While it wasn’t blowing teams out the way it did in the season’s opening week, the South Brunswick High School ice hockey team was still able to remain unbeaten, picking up a pair of wins last Wednesday and Friday to move to 5-0.
   The Vikings scored an impressive win over a deep Scotch Plains squad (5-2). And while they didn’t play as well two days later against West Orange on the road at South Mountain Arena, they were still able to shake off whatever early problems they had to post a 5-3 victory.
   With defenders Matt Siegel and Dan Kacerosky out of action, South Brunswick started the West Orange game by falling behind 3-1midway through the first period. Despite being a young team, the Vikings were able to right their ship and dominate West Orange the rest of the way for the win.
   ”He (Siegel) is a solid, stay at home defender who doesn’t wander out there,” South Brunswick head coach Mike Slansky said. “Missing him was hurting us. Friday night we came out flat and I’m not sure what it was. It was actually our first late game or it could have been that blowing teams out didn’t prepare us for a close game but we were losing 3-1 halfway into the first period and we weren’t looking good.
   ”To a man I don’t think I had one player on the team who would say he was happy with the way he played. They knew it and they knew they came out flat. So I called a time out and read them the riot act and we wound up outscoring them 4-0 for the remaining two periods.”
   While Slansky wasn’t ecstatic with they way his team began the game, he was certainly pleased with the way it was able to handle the adversity of trailing so early in the contest.
   ”What I took out of Friday’s game,” he said, “was that even missing two of our better players and coming out flat they were still able to put it together and win the game, even when we weren’t playing well. Our goalie (Dylan Trioano) really came through. In the third period he made some really good saves. So that helped.
   ”It was good to see they didn’t get down. They knew they were not playing well and they just pulled it together. They knew what they had to do and they went out there and did it.”
   While Trioano was clogging up the goal, the South Brunswick lines went to work whittling away the West Orange lead. Matt Repka knocked in the tying goal and then delivered a second that put the Vikings up for the first time. Twelve minutes into the third, Tyler Scharff scored South Brunswick’s fifth and final goal but it was the second goal, which closed the gap to 3-2, that Slansky felt was the turning point.
   ”One player really stood out in this game,” he said. “If you asked every player on this team they would give you the same name: Tyler Rule. He’s a freshman playing on the third line and he actually got a chance to play on the first line because Dan was missing. He scored at the 12:43 mark to bring the score to 3-2. He just lit a fire under the team.
   ”He came out and busted his tail every time. He had the opportunity to put in a nice slap shot for his first goal of the season and it couldn’t have come at a better time. After he got that goal he got an assist on the next goal, so he had a goal and an assist on the tying goal in 27 seconds.”
   There was no dramatic surge needed in Wednesday’s win over Scotch Plains, but the victory was impressive in a more traditional way as the Vikings controlled the action from start to finish.
   ”We actually came out and dominated the game pretty much from the get-go,” said Slansky. “We never trailed in that game. From a team perspective we played a much better game. We were sharper out of the gate, which is always good to see. It took us a while to score but the bottom line is we dominated the first two periods.”
   Once again, South Brunswick got a great game from Kush Patel, who scored a pair of goals. He is the team’s leading point scorer along with Tyler Scharff and they are followed closely by Matt Repka, who also scored a goal against Scotch Plains, on an assist by Kacerosky.
   South Brunswick shouldn’t have too hard a time of it this Saturday on the road against J. P. Stevens’ first year varsity program, but that will be coming on the heels of this week’s battle of league unbeatens against Livingston.
   ”We’re looking to be more defensive minded in front of our own net,” Slansky said of the improvements he thinks his team can make this week. “We have to take care of business in front of our own goaltender, which we haven’t necessarily been doing the last couple of games. We’ve been playing pretty sloppy in front of him.
   ”We’ve been putting goals on the board; we’ve got scoring coming from just about every line. We’re getting good productivity when needed, we just need to take care of business in our own zone.”