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4-Point Games by Letourneau and Good pace SAC to 8-5 win over Northwood in Lake Placid

March 16, 2023   ·   0 Comments

The short-handed SAC Saints cobbled together a pair of spirited road efforts to split its final series of the season in Lake Placid on the weekend.

On Friday night, the Saints’ potent offence overpowered Northwood 8-5 and was fueled by four-point games from Dean Letourneau and Jack Good.

Veterans Francesco Dell’Elce and Jack Pridham scored two goals each to spur SAC’s comeback win against their PHC rivals. Assistant Captain Anselmo Rego augmented the offensive barrage by adding three assists. SAC Head Coach David Manning was very pleased with the performance of both his younger players and his veterans in Friday’s action-packed victory.

“The top two lines were really dangerous all game. We had a Grade 11 line of Letourneau, Good, and Chiovetti which was really impressive. We have come to expect that our Grade 12s like Rego and Pridham will produce and Friday was no different.”

Although Coach Manning’s Saints dropped a 6-4 decision to Northwood on Saturday to wind down their 2022-23 campaign, he acknowledged that his team crossed the border with only 14 skaters due to a rash of late-season injuries.

“We were short on the weekend with nine forwards and five defense. Over the course of the weekend, we just ran out of steam, it seemed.”

The exhibition contests in the Empire State were Games 52 and 53 on the Saints’ schedule and Coach Manning reflected on his squad’s 31-20-2 season.

“It was a successful year. We challenged ourselves with the toughest schedule at this level around. The combination of our league play in the PHC and the junior games we have added really was a great test for our players all year long. We had 11 players get commitments to higher levels (NCAA & 1 OHL) and excitedly wait for the NHL draft to come in June. We always put the players at the center of everything we do and to have them achieve so much is really remarkable to see.  We are so proud of them.”

In Friday night’s see-saw battle with Northwood, Coach Manning noted that “it was definitely a back-and-forth affair. We don’t mind games like that to be honest; as we know, if teams open things up, we can punish them.”

That “punishment” came in the form of a Saints’ offence eruption –  four unanswered goals in less than ten minutes in the third period– to secure the road victory. 

SAC and Northwood traded goals in a high-scoring first period.  Five minutes into the opening frame, Cole Bauman put Northwood in front 1-0, but Dean Letourneau tied the game when he fired his 14th goal of the PHC season on assists from Tyler Chiovetti and Jack Good.

Northwood’s James Schneid put the Lake Placid squad back out in front 2-1 at 10:04.  However, SAC’s prodigious power play went to work and tied the game at 7.31 on Letourneau’s second goal of the period.

Jack Pridham and Anselmo Rego earned assists on the man-advantage marker. The back-and-forth rhythm of the game continued when Northwood’s Ritter Coombs restored the home team’s one-goal lead that the home side took into the intermission. 

Henry Thornton’s goal less than two minutes into the middle frame staked Northwood to a 4-2 lead. The Saints’ Tyler Chiovetti—on Jack Good’s second assist of the game–scored at 11.43 to pull SAC to within one. Veteran Saints’ defenseman Francesco Dell’Elce fired his ninth goal of the season on assists from the productive duo of Letourneau and Good—to pull SAC into a 4-4 tie.

Andrew Schmidt put Northwood ahead for the fourth time in the contest when he scored at 14.49 of the third period, but the rest of the game belonged to the SAC offence. Saints’ defenseman Ben Power tied the game 5-5 and kicked off the Aurora school’s four-goal eruption when he scored at 11.23 on assists from Dylan Murray and Letourneau– whose helper was his fourth point of the night.

Just past the half-way point of the final period, the Saints took their first lead of the game when Dell’Elce fired his second goal on Friday night, assisted by Jared McNeil. Dell’Elce’s game-winning goal was his 10th of the PHC season.

Assistant Captain Jack Pridham rounded out the scoring for the Saints to put the game away. Pridham’s power play marker at 7.02—with helpers from Good and Rego – gave his team a 7-5 lead. With 15 seconds left on the clock, Pridham notched his second of the game on assists from McNeil and Rego to provide the winning margin versus Northwood. Rego finished another productive playmaking game with three assists for the Saints, giving the speedy top-line forward 23 helpers in the 2022-23 PHC season.

In Saturday’s season-ending contest, Northwood took a 2-0 lead on goals by Billy Batten and James Schneid by the midway point of the first period.

SAC narrowed the margin to one when Dean Letourneau tallied his 16th goal of the PHC season on assists by Jack Good and Tyler Chiovetti. Northwood extended their lead before the end of the opening period when Schneid fired his second goal of the game to make it 3-1.

Ritter Coombs expanded Northwood’s lead to three at 14.27 of the second period, but the Saints fought back to even the game 4-4 with three goals in ten minutes.

Lucas Veilleux’s tenth PHC goal of the season—on assists from Jack Pridham and Letourneau—reduced the Saints’ deficit to 4-2 on the power play at 11.51 of the middle frame. Jared McNeil scored less than two minutes later for SAC to narrow the margin to 4-3 from Pridham and Francesco Dell-Elce. Letourneau’s second goal of the game 54 seconds into the third period—on assists from Good and Chiovetti– pulled SAC into a 4-4 tie as the Grade 11 line clicked again versus Northwood. The triumvirate tallied 17 points in two games versus the Lake Placid prep school.  However, a power play goal by Nikita Meshcheryakov turned out to be the game-winner and Northwood went up 6-4 with 6.56 left in the game on a goal by James Schneid; the Saints could get no closer in their final contest of the season.

By Jim Stewart



         

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