The New Jersey Renegades, who had 7 wins and 5 loses, played the Junior Flyers as club hockey season continued on October 22 at the Flemington Ice Arena in Hunterdon, NJ.
The arena was filled with friends and family of the players.
Play was tight and with scores landing on both side. By the second period the goal scoring was tied with two goals each.
Midway into the third period Flyers player Kyle Washkalavitch scored with an assist from Ben Meisinger. The Renegades answered that with their own goal two minutes later but it wasn’t enough to close the gap.
The final score was 5-3 for the Jr. Flyers.
Afterwards, the coaches from the Renegades shared a variety of opinions on how the night’s game went, and what the players could have done differently.
“It could have gone better, the kids tried hard, just mental mistakes and it costs us the game. They could have crashed the net harder and listened to what the coaches told them, what they needed to be doing,” said Assistant Coach Jonathan Craig
Owner, general manager and co-head coach Cliff Graziano told The VOICE: “I think we actually played really well, even though we lost. Sometimes you win and you don’t play well and you get lucky, and sometimes you lose and you play well. It’s about developing good habits and I think we are well on our way to becoming one of the better teams in the league.”
Graziano added, “I think we just need to pay attention to the little things. The little things are usually the important things, but they are often overlooked by a lot of players. And once they do that and realize that, we are going to be that much better.”
Graziano’s co-head coach, Peter Rossi says, “I thought after losing the first period we came back and battled back to tie the second and third. But the problem is we can’t start slow and give up two goals, especially against good teams.”
He added, “They gotta get ready to go right from the drop of the puck. We can’t wake up all of a sudden the second period and decide that now’s the time to play.”
The players on the NJ Renegades added their perspectives on the game.
Defenseman Brian Frister said, “You know we had a slow start in the first period, and a little bit of a slow start at the first five minutes of the second period, but other than that we were taking it to ‘em.”
Forward Alec Dugan analyzed the team’s weaknesses saying, “I thought we performed all right. Just the small mistakes hurt us. We definitely just need to minimalize the gray zone turnovers, and just the bad aspects of our game to really just fine tune us for the rest of the season.”
As for his overall play and his penalty, Dugan said, “I was in the box for six minutes haha…I think I brought the intensity all 60 minutes. Just try to jump start the boys, get them going. And I thought it helped the second period.”
The coaches for the Renegades say they are focussed on helping their players get where need be.
Rossi says, “We take pride in having our kids reach the next level whether it’s they go on to NCAA hockey, club hockey, or just they get into college and they go to college and enjoy that experience.”
