Huskies Power Past Proctor Academy

New Hampton had a short travel to play Lakes Region Rival, Proctor Academy, this afternoon. The Huskies are looking to stay on the winning track, as well as get a little revenge for the 2-1 OT loss, they suffered to Proctor the last time the two teams met. At the start of the game, Proctor came out with a little extra energy, due to it being their senior game, putting the pressure on New Hampton early. The Huskies did a good job of keeping it simple in the first five minutes to hold off Proctor’s early pressure. Just as it looked as if New Hampton was turning the tide and starting to take control of the game, Proctor scored at the eight-minute mark to take the lead. Proctor’s goal seemed to only make the Huskies hungrier to score, dominating the next ten minutes of play. Although, peppering the Proctor goaltender with shots, New Hampton remained down one after the first period of play. The Huskies continued their domination to start the second period and one could tell that Proctor would not be able to keep them off the scoreboard for long. Three minutes into the second period, Joe Dunlap put home a rebound off Michael Kesselring’s shot, to square things at one. Five minutes later, Michael Ardagna passed the puck up to Zak Lanoue, giving him and Bradley Shaw a two-on-one. On the two-on-one, Lanoue carried the puck over the blue line and then made a nice pass in front of the Proctor defenseman that landed perfectly on Shaw’s stick. In one motion, Shaw caught the puck and fired it near side past a sliding Proctor goaltender, to put New Hampton in the lead. After taking the lead, the Huskies let off the gas a bit and the rest of the period saw back and forth action, but neither team was able to score. Starting the third period up 2-1, the Huskies knew the next goal would be extremely important and came out flying. Three and a half minutes into the third period, Michael Ardagna and Jake Gallitto set up Zak Lanoue in the slot. Lanoue fired a shot far side just over the Proctor goaltender’s pad to extend New Hampton’s lead to two. A minute and a half later, Uhler put home a rebound off of Adam Shuchart’s shot, giving the Huskies a three-goal lead. Eight minutes later, Joe Dunlap and Bradley Shaw made a nice play on the rush to get Jake Dunlap the puck at the top of the circle. Jake Dunlap took one step towards the net and ripped a shot, far side top corner for New Hampton’s fifth goal. In complete control of the game and not needed any more goals, the Huskies kept things simple during the final minutes and came away with a 5-1 victory. Matt Sayles played great again in net, stopping 29 of the 30 shots that came his way. Today’s victory finished off an impressive Lakes Region Regular Season for New Hampton, finishing second place, with a 9-2-1 record. With two regular season games remaining, the Huskies will head down to Brookline, MA on Monday, February 19th to take on Dexter School.