The club ice hockey team looked to continue to grow and develop as a program when they took on Columbia on Saturday at the Sport-O-Rama ice rink. The Roadrunners went on to win the game 11-0.
Ramapo’s general manager Art Chill believed that the team could ill afford to sit back, while setting the tone early in the game.
“We played them the week before and beat them 11-0 then too,” said Chill. “So these are the toughest games for any team to go up against, because clearly you have the superior team, and one of the problems that arises there is that we really have to take the play to a team like that, because if you sit back, the problem you have is that you play down to the level of your opponent.”
Chill said that he didn’t know what to expect, and that this year’s team exceeded expectations.
“High school hockey is just about over, so we had no ability to recruit. So we were dealing with just what was actually here, of guys who played hockey who came because of the education at Ramapo, not because we have hockey,” said Chill. “So the main thing was putting the program together and not having any idea how many guys or the quality of players that were coming out. Looking back, in retrospect, I can absolutely say that this equaled and exceeded any of our expectations, because we didn’t know what to expect.”
Sophomore goaltender Keith Gay posted his third consecutive shutout in the victory; it was his fourth of the season.
Sophomore defenseman and alternate captain Josh Filipovits opened up the scoreboard just 56 seconds into the game. The Roadrunners would wind up scoring three more goals at period’s end, by freshman forward Matt Clark, senior forward and captain Nolan Ouellette and sophomore forward Zach O’Connor.
The scoring didn’t take long to hold up, as Ouellette scored his second goal less than three minutes into the second period. Junior defenseman Anthony Carudo put the Roadrunners up 6-0 with a goal three minutes later.
In the third period, freshman forward Dmitry Danilchik scored just over eight minutes in, followed by four goals in the span of a minute and 35 seconds, and three of them in 35 seconds. Freshman forward Pat Anzano made it 8-0, followed by O’Connor’s second goal of the game 11 seconds later. Junior defenseman Marc Concato made it 10-0 just 24 seconds later.
Clark ended the rout with the 11th Roadrunner goal a minute later.
Last night, the Roadrunners took on Suffolk in a make up of the game that was postponed back on Jan. 24. The Roadrunners lost the final game of the season by a score of 4-3.
Despite the loss, however, after 31 years of absentia, the Roadrunners hockey program had a successful season, and it looks like ice hockey at Ramapo is here to stay.
pmcguire@ramapo.edu