Ice Cats Win Ninth Straight

Four first period goals helped the Mount Pleasant Ice Cats to their ninth straight victory 8-1 over Byram Hills Saturday at the Westchester Skating Academy.

“I thought that there were somethings we did well and there are something’s we still need to work on to finish off the season,” Mount Pleasant Head Coach Erik Kallio said about the Ice Cats need for improvement on special teams and play in and around the net.

“Overall a win is a win at this time of year,” he said.

The Ice Cats next chance for perfection will be against Nyack/Tappan Zee 4:15 p.m. Wednesday at the Palisades Center Ice Rink before hosting Horace Greeley 9 p.m. Saturday at the Westchester Skating Academy.

Sleepy Hollow Irvington then comes to town February 12 at 9 p.m. before the Ice Cats visit North Rockland February 19 at 5 p.m. for their regular season finale.

Junior forward Jason Cassinelli scored the Ice Cats first two goals for a 2-0 lead less than five minutes into the first period receiving assists from senior captain defenseman Brendan Marinelli and junior forward Alex Demeropoulis.

Senior forward Joe Presta stretched the Bobcats deficit 3-0 unassisted with two minutes left before the second.  Matt Cassinelli then squeezed one last Ice goal with 4.4 seconds left for the 4-0 advantage. Junior forward Ben Scher assisted on the play.

The Ice Cats sustained the momentum on senior captain defenseman Brendan Marinelli’s unassisted goal five minutes into the second for the 5-0 score.

Junior forward Vincent Cattucci then netted one of his own three minutes later on senior forward Sam Kolbovsky’s assist extending the point margin to six before the third.

Cassinelli’s third goal came less than a minute into the final period unassisted. Sophomore forward Frankie Gaudio would put the Bobcats lone shot through the net ten minutes later assisted by sophomore captain forward Jake Kaiser but it would be too late as Kolbovsky then netted one of his own capping the Ice Cats 8-1 victory.

“Games like this our tough to swallow,” Byram Hills Head Coach Steve Annunziato said. “It can be a learning experience but it can also not be,” he said.

The Bobcats were without two key frontline players serving suspensions for violating team policy. Annunziato hopes his young squad fresh off the graduation of ten seniors learn from the adversity for the rest of their goal accomplishing section one playoff season in order to build for next year.

“It’s up for the kids to decide if they want to take something from it,” Annunziato said.

Mount Pleasant finished with 26 shots on goal including 14 in the first, four in the second, and eight in the third.

Byram Hills had three shots on goal in the first period, seven in the second, and eight in the third for 18 total on the night heading into Sunday’s 8:50 p.m. faceoff with New Rochelle at the Brewster Ice Arena.