Cheshire Boys' Hockey Routs Sheehan

Cheshire came out aggressively and took control of its boys hockey game with Sheehan of Wallingford from the start Wednesday night.

The Rams pressured the Titans and dominated puck possession early and throughout the SCC Division II matchup on the way to an 8-1 victory at the Northford Ice Pavilion.

 Cheshire scored four goals in the first period, three in the second and added one in the third. Freshman Matt Muzyka scored a hat trick and senior captain Ryan Powers  scored twice and had one assist.

 "Sheehan plays hard. I think we had more skill but like I told the kids the other day, the team that plays hard is going to win the game," Cheshire head coach Jim Riccitelli said. "It's a good game to get a lot of the younger kids experience. They come to practice every day, I think they should get a chance to play.

"Our older kids showed a lot of class. They knew they weren't going to get a lot of ice time midway through the second. They handled it well, let the younger kids play."

Muzyka got things started by taking a pass from junior Spencer Hackett from in back of the net and lifting a soft wrist shot high into the left side of the net past Sheehan goalie Joe Boyle at 4:21 of the first.

Powers made it 2-0 at 11:37 of the first with a 25-foot slapshot from the top of the right circle with assists from freshman Joe D'Errico and junior Tom Bartlett. Seven seconds later, junior Alex Vendetto scored on a breakaway of the faceoff following Powers' goal with a shot directly in front of Boyle. Powers earned the assist.

Powers finished the first period scoring with a wrist shot from in front high over Boyle's right shoulder with 11 seconds left. Sophomore Sean Richard and Vendetto got the assists.

"We were overmatched a little bit," Sheehan head coach Dave Festa said. "We weren't getting into playing our systems. They were able to take advantage of some of the shots in tight. We were not clogging up the middle like what we were trying to do, what our game plan was. And they were able to capitalize on a lot of those opportunities."

Vendetto scored 27 seconds into the second period on a wrister crossing in front of the net with an assist from junior defenseman John Cunningham. Muzyka then scored two in row, one at 2:23, assisted by juniors Will Devine and Walt Cashore, and the second at 6:36 with a hard wrist shot from point-blank range, assisted by sophomore Sean Richard.

Sheehan scored its only goal at 14:56 of the second on an unassisted score by Nick Capozzi from the right side of the net past Cheshire sophomore goalie Scott Romano, who was playing in place of regular starter Tyler Carbone. Sophomore Jack Naramore also saw some time in goal in the third period.

Sheehan (5-6) is in the CIAC's Division III for the state tournament but sees a lot of Division II teams, such as Cheshire, in the SCC.

"We have a lot of tough Division II teams against the SCC," Festa said. "It's always a very strong division, which actually will get us ready for the (Division III) tournament. We have some teams within Division III which we really feel we can compete against and we're making sure we're getting tuned up for the tournament."

Cheshire's last goal came at 8:41 of the third as D'Ericco took a pass from in front of the net and put it in past Sheehan goalie Will Valleau, who replaced Boyle in the third.

Cheshire (7-3-2) plays Watertown-Pomperaug Saturday at Taft School at 7:30 p.m. The Rams defeated Watertown 2-1 earlier in the season, but Watertown is coming off an impressive win over 8-5-1 Wilton. Each of the Rams' remaining games should help Riccitelli prepare his team for the postseason.

"We're still a work in progress. When you get to this point in the season, you don't want to peak too early," Richitelli said. "We'll have played 11 games in 26 days. We played nine games in the first 47 days (because of the many school cancellations because of the weather). You hope you peak at the right time." 

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