Just like last weekend’s Gettysburg victory over Salisbury in which they won 7-5, the score in that game didn’t tell the truth. The Seagulls outplayed the Bullets but still lost. The Bullets won 12-8 today but the score in this one didn’t tell the truth either. It may have been only a four-goal margin of victory but the Bullets put this one away in the third quarter. They were up 12-3 with 9 minutes left in the fourth when the Generals were able to score their first goal of the second half and finally get some shots past Bullet netminder #6 Tim McGinnis in the last few minutes of the game. Except for a 1-1 tie early in the first the Bullets never trailed the whole day.
The Bullets gained possession on a pushing call off the opening face-off that set them up for their first shot at the Generals defense. The Bullets started off in an open set in which #5 Nick Purkat was denied on his initial dodge down the right pipe, but he redodged from the low wing, got underneath his man, tucked his stick, and wrapped it around W&L goalie #1 Ansel Sanders for an early 1-0 Bullet lead. After the Bullets man-down unit killed a one minute slashing penalty, the Generals capitalized at the 10:55 mark when #9-Matt Fink roped one into the top right corner (his first of a team high 4 goals on the day) on McGinnis off a feed from #21-Gavin Molinelli. The Bullets were tagged with another slashing penalty during the Generals first scoring drive, which would look to give the Generals a shot at taking the lead. The Bullets man-down were able to successfully kill that penalty also, and took the lead back for good at the 8:07 mark when #8 Rich Sharp scored unassisted on a lefty bounce shot. The Bullets took their first two-goal lead of the day when #16 Pete Milliman capitalized on their only man-up goal of the day when he split to his left and hit a lefty jump shot from middle of the field. The Bullets would tack another one on in the first quarter at the 1:41 mark when #20 Ric Bremer (his first of four on the day) took a Milliman feed and banged it home. W&L answered at the 1:10 mark when Fink netted his second goal off a feed from #42 Rich Williams. This would close out the scoring in the first quarter.
The second quarter presented both teams with plenty of offensive opportunities, but neither was able to cash in on them until the 6:25 mark. The Generals would pull within one at 4-3 when #10 Dustin Martin would score unassisted. The Bullets offense would come back and score their lone goal in the second quarter, but would actually be starting an 8-0 scoring run that would last into the fourth quarter. This lone second quarter goal, which put the Bullets back up by 2 at 5-3, was scored by Bremer on a Milliman feed at the 2:36 mark. With time winding down in the first half the Generals appeared to have scored a goal with 3 seconds left, but the goal was disallowed when the feeder stepped in the crease. This left us with a 5-3 score at the end of the first half.
The third quarter was all Gettysburg. Face-man #12-John Czerapowicz helped to spark and keep the Bullets hot by winning 4 out of the 5 face-offs in the third quarter. This is where looking at the stat sheets can get you in trouble because the Bullets were outshot 8-6 in the third quarter. The big thing is that the Bullets scored on four of their six shots and the Generals were held scoreless on their 8 shots. When you score four goals on six shots and proceed to win four of the five face-offs it is not hard to see why the Bullets took control of the game in the third quarter. The Bullets first goal came just 47 seconds in when #33 Wes Cadman scored unassisted after dodging his way in close from up top. They struck again at the 12:18 mark when #4 Kevin Smith scored unassisted on a bounce shot, followed up by Milliman’s second goal of the day off a Bremer dish at the 11:11 mark, and finally Purkat finished off a Cadman feed at the 1:58 mark. These four third quarter goals gave the Bullets a 9-3 lead heading into the fourth.
The Bullets were not done scoring yet, as they opened with the first three goals of the fourth quarter. Purkat finished off his hat trick when he caught a pass from Bremer, took his time looking at the goalie and lined one into the back of the net on Sanders. The next two goals were scored by the senior attack duo of Gettysburg when Bremer took two separate Milliman feeds at the 11:16 and the 9:38 marks to give the Bullets their 11th and 12th goals. This made the Bullets lead 9 at 12-3. After having been completely shutout by the Bullets defense and goalie McGinnis for over 27 minutes, the Generals finally got on the board at the 8:59 mark of the fourth quarter when Martin scored his second goal of the day unassisted. The Generals wouldn’t give up completely though as they got two more goals from Fink at the 4:29 and 4:06 mark. They notched two more goals at the 1:18 mark and with 6 seconds left in the game to bring the score to 12-8. While the Generals scored the last 5 goals of the game and the Bullets offense played a sloppy game of keep away, it was still too little too late.
While last week it appeared as if Bullet goalie McGinnis bailed his team out with 16 saves, that wasn’t the case today. The Bullets defense was able to stymie the General offense for long stretches at a time with the offense capitalizing on a lot of their scoring opportunities. The Generals who came out smoking last week in their quarterfinal matchup against Washington College were never able to put together a solid scoring run until the end of the game when the outcome was already set. The Generals put together a heck of a season under first-year coach Mike Cerino and finished at 14-4. The Bullets move to 17-1 on the year and earn their second straight trip to the National Championship game at Rutgers University in beautiful Piscataway, NJ where they will play the winner of tomorrow’s Middlebury vs Ithaca semi-final match up.
By the way, it's exit #9.
Gettysburg vs. Washington And Lee
| Current Record | |
|---|
| Gettysburg | 17-1 |
| Current Record | |
|---|
| Washington And Lee | 14-4 |
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