Early Sunday morning, the Ventura Mariners Bantam Killer Bees headed back to KHS in Anaheim to take on the Beach City
Lightning. The boys had beaten the Beach Bolts in their two previous meetings, but this time the game counted and for some
reason the odds makers had the Bees as the underdogs. Our Pee Wee team had the game before us and gave an indication that
the officiating was a bit suspect. Well duh, we've played this rink before. Remember the "warning" game?
The
boys came out with intensity and it looked like they were picking up were they left off last week. Seven seconds in, Niko
Utash crashed the net and buried a great feed from Jason Hart. Unfortunately, the Lightning came right back and scored. That's
how things went: back and forth. Mid-period, Killian Anderson blocked a shot from the point, got control of the puck and zipped
it to a streaking Corey Werden who straight up took the goalie to school. About a minute later, Niko and Jason hooked up again,
only this time it was Jason who scored. I couldn't see the goal because there were a bunch of Mariner Pee Wees standing in
my way, but I heard very good things about it. Beach City would get a late goal to close the period out with the Mariners
up by one.
This was a weird game in that at times it didn't look like the boys knew what they were
doing and others when they were absolutely brilliant. They started off the second period with some of that brilliance. Brian
Zacchia won the face off back to Blake Burlew, who put it over in Josh Kuchinski's wheelhouse. The Captain cranked a low hard
slapshot the Jason deflected passed the goalie. It was a powerplay goal that actually looked like a powerplay goal. Imagine
that. For most of the remainder of the middle frame, the Mariners didn't play so great. They were running around in their
zone and giving up too many unforced turnovers. Consequently, the Lightning surged and tied the game up at fours. Thankfully,
Shane Heller found Jason at the low circle and a fluttering outside jumpshot found the back of the net. Jason had a natural hat-trick,
and more importantly the team regained the lead.
As I said before, we were prepared for some funky
reffing, or at least we thought we were. It wasn't San Diego bad, it was more like Three Stooges bad. Things like head contact
and boarding were ignored, but hooking and tripping were called despite the fact that nobody was actually hooked or tripped.
Icing was called arbitrarily and it wasn't uncommon for the officials to huddle for minutes on end. It seemed like this crew
was simply unfamiliar with the rules of the game. The only saving grace was that it went both ways. The Lightning parents
were as unhappy as we were with the calls and non-calls. Nothing demonstrates this more than the debacle in the second period.
Josh nailed a kid with a Scott Stevens-approved open ice hit. It was clean and brutal. The kid hit the ice and stayed there.
Nothing was called. The Mariners had the puck and skated for a maybe 10 seconds. Seeing that the kid was hurt, the ref wisely
blew the whistle. The officials got together for a minor eternity and came out of the huddle with an elbowing call against
Josh. An injury does not equal a penalty. Whatever.
The boys spent the entire third period killing
off penalties. The ref was nice enough to space them out so that every two minutes we'd get a fresh mystery call to contend
with. It was capped off by an awesome two-man disadvantage right at the end of the game. Bad calls aside, the boys stepped
up and devoured the PK minutes like a ravenous pack of dogs. When the final buzzer went, the Mariners had escaped with a 5-4
victory.
Though they won, I don't think the boys played their best game. Brian, Conor Gleason, and
Luke Tickle all had great chances, but overall the forwards were not playing well together. There was not enough passing and
guys weren't moving without the puck. Basically, everyone was trying to be the hero and they wanted somebody else to do all
of the dirty work. The defense was also sub-par. And when I talk of team defense, I mean all five skaters. Forwards have defensive
responsibilities too. Camron Torres and Tom Dobrokhot were good against the rush and JB Lovelace and Blake made some good
plays at the blue-line, but that was about it. Too often guys were out of position and not back-checking, and guess what,
they gave up a ton of odd man rushes. In the defensive zone, the boys were running around without a clue. They couldn't win
the puck in the corners and couldn't break out.
TJ Samuel was one of the few skaters that was doing
what he was supposed to. He played his wing, skated up on the play and got open and he barely touched the puck. Nobody was
looking for him. I'm sure goalie Mark Becica felt like he could've been better, but the reality is he saved this game. The
four that went in against him were a direct result of defensive breakdowns and lack of coverage in front of the crease. Mark
had 26 huge saves, including some spectacular work with the glove. This team should have never given up that many shots.
Worst
of all was the lack of physical play. The Lightning are an aggressive team that plays on and sometimes over the line. You
have to match that. It's that simple. Brian, known mostly for his hands and his awesome first name had a nice hit as did Jason.
With Patrick Dalton AWOL, Killian stepped up his hitting, laying the smack down for two. The rest of the team seemed content
with poking at the puck instead of lowering the boom. Maybe I'm being too critical of the kids, but I know they can do a lot
better. The coaches know it and I hope the boys do too. This is a team that can play with anyone in the league, but they have
to play together first.
Wonder Dog.
Gianluca backed up in this game, but as you know that doesn't exclude him from mention in this report. I'd like to thank him
for giving me the opportunity to hang out with his awesome dog Jasper. He's the sweetest most well-behaved pooch I've ever
met. Nicole got so attached to him that the Allen's better watch out. She might come up there and dognap him.
Where's Waldo? Has anyone seen Coach Jere? He wasn't at the game.
I called down to Glacial Lakewood and they said he wasn't there either.
Rock On. I have to give some props to the guy running the music at KHS during our game.
This guy had everything on his laptop and was kicking out some great tunes from Sabbath, AC/DC, and Metalilica. He also had
the "Jeopardy" theme to play when the officials were taking one of their many conferences. To top it off he had hilarious movie
quotes in response to some of the interesting calls. We should hire that dude to do our home games.
