Comets battle in shootout over Potsdam

BFA St. Albans' Marion Pearson-Stanley watches as her shot goes in the net during the 7th round of the shootout during the Comets' game against Potsdam on Friday.

ST. ALBANS -- Neither team wanted to give an inch when the BFA-St. Albans girls hockey team hosted Potsdam, N.Y. during the first round of the 16th Annual Christi Corrigan Blitz Tournament on Friday night.

Both teams had their opportunities to take advantage throughout regulation, but skated to a 1-1 tie through three periods at Collins Perley.

The result will go down as a 1-1 tie in the record books, but for the tournament result, the teams continued to play through a 5-minute overtime before settling things in a shootout.

Throughout the shootout, the crowd was quiet awaiting the result of every shot. After going back and forth, it was a goal by freshman Marion Pearson-Stanley that gave the Comets the 4-3 shootout victory.

"We played well and thought we had lots of scoring opportunities tonight," said BFA coach Luke Cioffi. "We were pleased with the effort, what we did defensively, and overall as a team. We saw a lot of kids in positions we liked them in and certainly saw some things we need to improve upon, but lots of good energy for game 1, this was an awesome start. "

In the 7th round of the shootout, BFA's Dahlia Steele started things off by making a big save on Potsdam's Brynlee Desrosiers, who scored the teams only goal in regulation.

That opened things up for Pearson-Stanley who seized the opportunity to end the game. She cautiously skated in on Potsdam goalie Avery Marcil, and switched the puck from her forehand to her backhand and flipped the puck in the back of the net.

The first three rounds of the shootout belonged to the goaltenders, including a big pad save by Steele on Desrosiers in the second round.

In the fourth round, Potsdam's Jordyn Scott started the scoring skating slowly in on Steele and snapping a shot into the net.

BFA's Gabby Fraties answered the call on the next attempted getting her wrist shot past Marcil to tie things 1-1.

In the 5th round, the goalies stepped up again sending it to sudden-death rounds. Potsdam's Myla Thomas skated in quickly on Steele and put a snapshot into the net to give her team the advantage in the 6th round.

The Comets' Chatham Brouillette skated to center ice needing to score to keep the shootout going. She took a hard shot on net that Marcil got a big piece of making it look like she had ended the game, but the puck dropped in the crease and into the back of the net to keep the game going setting up Pearson-Stanley's winner in the 7th round.

"We practiced shootouts in our last practice before our regular season games, so we were thinking on the bench before the shootout of who had some moves in practice," said Cioffi. "It was fun."

It was a strong team effort by the Comets throughout the course of the game. Cioffi said he was happy with the team defense his team showed.

"Especially with a lot of young kids who are new to our program and what we do, defensively they played their areas well and did a great job getting in front of shots," he said. "They weren't afraid to get in the shooting lane, which helps us get out of the zone quicker and we communicated well too. I think it was a great stepping stone to start the year."

BFA controlled a good portion of the first period, but didn't find the results until late in the period. Pearson-Stanley got the puck down low to Reina Spaulding who put a hard shot on net that was saved. Kali Cushing was ready to pounce on the rebound and poked the puck into the back of the net for the 1-0 lead.

The Comets continued to control the play through most of the second period and looked like they were going to take a 2-0 lead when Spaulding got a breakaway and got a shot off that skipped by Marcil, but the puck settled in the crease before crossing the goal line keeping it a 1-0 game.

With less than a minute to go in the second period, Desrosiers showed her speed skating past a Comet defender to the right circle and took a wrist shot top shelf to tie the game 1-1.

After giving up the lead late in the second, the Comets were called for an early penalty to begin the third period.

They didn't give up many chances and killed off the penalty, which gave them the momentum back as they controlled most of the final frame of regulation.

"We always say that we want to be aggressive on the penalty kill and that was a big one," said Cioffi. "Smart, but aggressive and we did that. It was just smart hockey to kill off that penalty early in the third."

Neither team mustered much offense in the overtime period, but Desrosiers had the best chance of the frame, as she skated by the BFA defense and had an almost identical look to her goal in the second period. She took a hard shot, but Steele was ready this time and made the big save to keep the game tied.

It was a nice game for Steele who was returning to the team after taking a year off, as she came away with a number of big saves throughout the course of the game.

She finished with 20 stops.

"It's great having Dahlia back with us this year and know the girls love having her back," said Cioffi. "She came up with some huge saves for us throughout the course of the game."

The Comets will play Hingham, Mass. on Saturday in the 2nd day of the tournament. Hingham took down Essex 2-0 on Friday. Puck drop is 1:30 between BFA and Hingham on Saturday.

(The Following is a slideshow of photos from Friday's game between BFA-St. Albans and Potsdam)