Easties Hockey Clips T-Birds

East Haven ran away with Saturday afternoon's game against the Thunderbirds of North Branford picking up an 8-1 victory. 

Despite the final score, East Haven Coach Lou Pane was concerned coming into the game.

“We knew we would have to get to North Branford early," said Pane. "They were coming off a big win after beating Branford the other night 4-3 and we thought that they would match up with us. We knew we had to shut down their first line with brothers Eric and Dylan Podbielski, those two are as good as any players in the state.” 

East Haven did just that, shuting down North Branford with a strong defensive game.

“Sammy Gavigan played a good game," added Pane. "We tightened up defensively and offensively; we flowed really well and things became a lot easier.”

The game saw a pretty even first period but soon the game fell apart for North Branford.   

“We had the momentum early on in the game," said North Branford coach Ralph Shaw. "In the second period East Haven got a couple of quick goals that took the wind out of our sails, put us back on our heals and they capitalized on their opportunities and we didn’t."

The Easties saw three players score two goals each for the 8-1 win. Tom Brunski and Stephen Marsico both added two goals to their season totals. Sophomore Jordan Avena scored the first goal of his East Haven High career and added another just 41 seconds later in the win for the Easties.

North Branford’s lone goal was scored by Dylan Podbielski, assisted by Sam Amendola. Dylan also had an opportunity to face East Haven’s goaltender Sam Gavigan one on one in the second period for a penalty shot. Podbielski was breaking in and shooting on Gavigan when he was tripped up and he crashed knee-first into the post.  After a time down on the ice and being attended to by trainers he took center ice. The resulting penalty shot was stopped by Gavigan. 

North Branford’s record stands at 4-9-0 and East Haven is now 10-4-0.