Brick Township High School and Brick Memorial High School, which both reached the NJSIAA public school quarterfinals last March, open the hockey season with high hopes that they can have another solid season when the action begins this week.
“We have to see what happens,” Brick Township coach Bob Auriemma said. “We’re starting all over now because the players have to learn each other’s moves.”
Auriemma’s team finished 12-9-2 last season.
“We have four guys who played football and are out late, so we don’t know how we will jell,” he said. “They won’t be in the preseason scrimmages before the season starts, but they’ll be out there for the opening game.”
The four players who must get ready quickly for when Brick Township’s season begins on Dec. 7 are defensemen Mike Auriemma, a senior, Patrick Kearns, a junior, who are both grandsons of the head coach, and Brian Murphy, a sophomore, as well as senior goaltender Dylan Beaver. Their football season ended on Nov. 27 with the Thanksgiving game against Brick Memorial.
Despite the late start, Beaver will get the first consideration at goalie, where he was replaced during the season by Ed Rafferty, a junior who also returns.
“He’s a senior and gets the first shot, and we’ll see from there who is the most effective in goal,” Auriemma said.
Rafferty was in goal at the end of the season when the Green Dragons advanced in the state tournament with a pair of shutout victories.
Brick Township, which lost to eventual public school champion Randolph, 1-0, in the state quarterfinals last year, had a number of players who participated in the Brick Hockey Club.
But Auriemma said it is hard to say how much offseason dedication the players had with the overall conditioning for the season. Auriemma, who likes to make use of his shifts, expects his players to pass the puck crisply.
“You can’t outskate a pass,” Auriemma said with a laugh. “The thing is that we have limited ice time [in preseason], and the preparation for the season is such a short period of time for everybody. We have to see what happens, because some players are good drill players but not good in games, and some are good in games but are not good in drills. We have to see what happens with the learning curve.”
Auriemma said this year’s squad has more defensive players, including senior Ryan Graf and the late-starting football players. Sophomore Tyler Martin, a center, can also play on defense. Seniors Connor Noonan and Matt Gumina, integral parts of last year’s success, and sophomore Brendan Dowd are forwards. Dowd is the nephew of former Brick Township High School star Jim Dowd, who went on to play for 14 seasons in the National Hockey League.
Brick Memorial has a major rebuilding job from its 16-6-5 season that was ended by Morris Knolls High School, 4-2, in the state quarterfinals. Six seniors graduated this year: Brandon Person, Erik Talty, Mike Spinelli, goalie Mike Vincent, Sean Chafe and John Bartolomei.
Coach Chip Bruce feels that minimizing penalties is key, since penalties took a toll in the team’s state tournament loss.
“We had a very good penalty kill ratio last year; however, you still want to play with all of your guys,” Bruce said. “We’re going to focus a lot on staying out of the penalty box this year.”
His team was slated to open on Dec. 1 at Howell High School and to play on Dec. 4 against Ridge High School at the Ocean Ice Palace.
Junior Kevin Talty, Erik’s younger brother, takes over as the goalie.
“He learned a lot from Mike Vincent about handling pressure,” Bruce said. “I like his composure.”
Bruce is also pleased with the overall poise of the team that will emphasize its defense more this year until it establishes firepower comparable to the big numbers put up by Erik Talty and Person last year.
“But that remains to be seen,” Bruce said. “In the last couple of scrimmages, we put up some numbers. We look at defense and controlling play, but as the offense develops, we’ve seen in scrimmages we do have guys who can put the puck in the net, with [senior Anthony] Lobianco and [sophomore] Adam Person, and our defense put up some good numbers last year.”
That includes senior starter Tom Lindquist and junior Jason Franceschini.
“It’s going good,” Bruce said. “Things are starting to fall into place. We have a nice personality about this team, hard-working. The players came into the season focused like they were last season.”
A solid group of seniors and some sophomores carry this year’s squad, including seniors Mike Stopen at wing, Sean Hogan at center, and Ross Gordon and Tom Halligan at forward. The sophomores include forwards Zach Smith, Nick Spinelli and Justin Apgar and defensemen Colin Trevors, Kyle Huhn and Tyler Person, who is Adam’s twin brother.
“We’re looking for a lot out of Huhn,” Bruce said.
Bruce said there also are some promising freshman prospects who will emerge as the season unfolds.