Astros Take Down

There are times you wonder if it worth it…4:30 alarm wake-ups three days per week, getting home from what seems like the 110th road game in a row down in Manchester at 11:30 pm on a school night, being told over and over that you can’t hang with the big boys down South, that you have freshman goalies, that big bad Pinkerton is coming with their PA mafia flag and clown hair.  On a night when at least half of your team is inflicted with a flu like illness and finals start in 36 hours.

And then the game starts and you say to yourself – yup going to be a tough one as these Astros are about as tough as their MLB AL West compatriots (not the circa 2012 version mind you but the more recent Jose Altuve version) with the hits they are laying out in the first two minutes.  But then your captain #20 comes flying in behind the net on a forecheck and gets absolutely walloped and it’s right then, right there that you have a choice.  You stay down or you will yourself up and get back on the backcheck.  And maybe it’s Duncan Bailey out of the corner of his eye seeing Hans shake off that hit and with a captain’s leadership start the backcheck and says to himself, no more, not here, not on Saturday night, not in my house.   Boom!  And with that absolute crushing check, it was as if #10 took the lead and said to the visitors  “Welcome to Hanover, NH Astros and thanks for coming. Now you’re about to see why we are defending state champions and why you’re about to be knocked out of first place.”

So into a packed Campion arena came the league leading Pinkerton Astros with their gaudy 7-0 record taking on the corn fed Hanover hicks who came in at 5-1 (6-3 overall) in NHIAA play.  Once those first two minutes had ended and Hanover had decided to meet aggression with even more aggression of their own, it was Dick Dodds’s Marauders who were able to survive the slugfest with the 3-2 victory.  This was not a pretty win, but boy was it sweet.

In the first period, back and forth it went, with each team surviving man-ups and each team’s goalie, senior Dakota Robinson for Pinkerton and Marauder freshman (yes, hard to believe he is only a freshman) Ben Plottner, standing on their heads to keep it knotted at 0-0 going to deep into the stanza.  But first lines are first lines for a reason and in a bang-bang sequence, it was Cameron Woods finding an onrushing Pat Daley whose in close banger rebounded off of Robinson to a charging Charlie Plottner who calmly buried it stick side to make it 1-0 at 10:13.  Hanover almost made it 2-0 after freshman Spencer Lawe was tripped breaking in on goal and the subsequent Marauder power play had more chances than a game of Monopoly.  But Robinson was a rock and as the period wound down to 0, Hanover was whistled for a too many men penalty that would leave them starting the second on the man-down.

So maybe this was in coach Dodds’s playbook because on the kill, just 25 seconds into the second, it was Daley forechecking like Patrice Bergeron and causing an Astro defensive zone turnover that lead to a nifty pass to Woods in the high slot whose one timer made it 2-0.  Between the huge hits being laid out by both sides, it was the aggressive Hanover offensive forecheckers that kept the Astros busy as they tried to bore down on Plottner and his virus-laded defenders.  Eventually it was Pinkerton senior John Last at 13:56 who scored the game’s all important third goal to cut it to 2-1 going into the final frame.

So here we are again in the third up a goal.  The defense is exhausted, injuries are starting to pile up, the social studies midterm is on Monday, the Chiefs are beating the Colts, Pine Park is going to close for a year, Jim Kenyon still has a job throwing anything associated with Hanover/Norwich/Lyme/Dartmouth College/DHMC under the bus – life is bad.  We needed a goal and we needed a little puck luck.  At 6:43 we got it as the Astros were whistled for a high stick.  In came the power play unit and with Daley finding Matty Gardner on the reverse umbrella behind the net, it was his shot  that rebounded off of Robinson to Sy Oberting whose dagger into the net caused the most pain to the PA Mafia since Vito Corleone collapsed in his garden.

But it wasn’t over yet because you don’t get to be in first place in NHIAA Division 1 with a 3-1 win over Concord under your belt by folding.  A blazing Astros rush down the near side cut the lead to 3-2 with five minutes left and from then on in Pinkerton just brought it.  But for the last five minutes it was the Ben Plottner show, who proved that stick-optional goaltending is not so hard and with the number of his awesome kick saves without the benefit of a hockey stick you would have thought he was a wussy soccer player and not a hockey stud.  Carrying his upper classman teammates down the stretch, Plottner’s 21 saves sealed the win.

With the final horn, Hanover had survived.  A little dinged up and sucking down the Tamiflu like Gatorade on the drive home, but they had just knocked off the last untied, undefeated team in Division 1.  Seems like a long time ago that game in Tyngsboro, huh Marauder fans?

With the win, Hanover and Pinkerton join Concord in second place with 1 loss records, trailing only Bedford which owns an early season tie with Londonderry as their only hiccup.  Next up is 5-2-1 Windham, a very strong team making their Division 1 debut, on Saturday afternoon at Campion.  Good luck on the finals Marauders – remember there is no penalty for guessing and choose C if you don’t know the answer as we need all of you academically eligible for the playoffs.  See you at the rink.