Team DC Leads Early but Falls to Mass. in Shootout
It looked good for Team DC a little more than three minutes into Friday's game against Massachusetts in the USA Hockey America's Showcase in Pittsburgh. The team came out firing and jumped to a 2-0 lead 3 minutes, 12 seconds into the contest, but Massachusetts pushed back and wore Team DC down, rallying for two goals later in the period before ultimately winning in a shootout, 3-2, at the RMU Island Sports Center.
Charlie O'Mara was superb in net for TEAM DC, turning aside 27 of the 29 shots he faced in regulation and overtime and thwarting the final three shooters in the shootout, but it wasn't enough to hold off Massachusetts. Team DC managed just 17 shots on goal for the game and went 1-for-5 in the shootout, with Billy Jenkins connecting for the only goal on the team's first shot.
With the shootout loss, Team DC falls to 1-0-1 for the tournament and sits alone in second place in its pool. A victory Saturday in regulation against Washington, which is 2-0 after a 7-3 victory against Massachusetts and a 6-3 win vs. New York, Saturday at 1 p.m. would assure Team DC a spot in Sunday's quarterfinals.
"We got off to a good start and played pretty well early in the first period," head coach Rob Trantin said, "but our effort was uneven, and we made a few questionable decisions that really cost us. I thought we came out and played great in the overtime, which is really encouraging as we head into tomorrow's big game. The goal is to play a meaningful game on Sunday."
Team DC started with a bang, scoring just 1:20 into the contest when Devin Lowe took a neutral zone pass from Josh Keller, and fired a shot from the left side that was stopped by Massachusetts netminder Nick Howard but bounced right onto the stick of Jackson Harnois, who buried it for the early lead. DC added to the lead less than two minutes later, at 3:12, when Drew Hartley converted a great stretch pass from Trevor Van Vleck into a backhand breakaway goal for a 2-0 lead.
But Massachusetts dug in from that point forward and controlled play throughout most of the game. Steven Giardina made it 1-1 on a strange goal at 13:50 of the first period before Anthony Nikolopoulos evened things up with just 34 seconds left in the opening frame.
Team DC managed just two shots on goal in the third period, but played a strong overtime, controlling the puck for most of the extra five minutes. "One thing we need to do is get more shots," Trantin said. "We had several good opportunities and chose to pass the puck for whatever reason."
Lowe is tied with Trevor Dixon for the Team DC scoring lead after two games with three points, while Dixon leads the club with a pair of goals. Today's game and all of the showcase games can be seen live at www.Fasthockey.com.
