Saturday, January 20, 2018

Cadets For Vets: Shaker-Colonie @ LaSalle (hockey), 1/20/18

This is how you start a new tradition.

LaSalle Institute joined forces with the Albany Housing Coalition to present Cadets For Vets at Conway Arena at Hudson Valley Community College tonight, the culmination of perhaps the biggest day of the season. It's also Alumni Day on the hockey schedule, with the annual, ahem, "old-timers" game taking place early in the afternoon.

The main event, though, came before the largest crowd of the season, with very few open spaces in the bleachers, as LaSalle welcomed Shaker-Colonie to Conway Arena. Concessions were expanded to include chili, macaroni & cheese, meatballs, and goulash with the usual pizza, coffee, candy, and other snacks.

With LaSalle leading, 1-0, in the second period, Jack O'Bryan lasered a one-timer past Jets netminder Dan Molloy to boost the lead to 2-0. Nineteen seconds later, however, Tyler Wilson brought Shaker-Colonie back within a goal at 2-1 by beating Casey Boone, ending Boone's shutout string, which had begun a week and a half ago in the 2nd period against Guilderland/Mohonasen/Scotia-Glenville. Later in the period, Sebastian Geiger found the sweet spot in the corner to Molloy's right, and went top shelf to make it 3-1. The Cadets would add two insurance goals in the third period to, ah, ice the game, and run their winning streak to five in a row with a convincing 5-1 victory.

Next comes the most difficult stretch of the season for LaSalle. Christian Brothers Academy handed the Cadets their only league loss of the season last month, and the Brothers visit Troy on Wednesday night on a down note after dropping a 3-2 decision to Queensbury earlier tonight. Then, the Cadets begin a 4-game road trip in Bethlehem against the first place Eagles, who kept pace by beating Burnt Hills/Ballston Spa, 6-1. Meanwhile, Shenendehowa, after a tough 1-0 loss to LaSalle on Wednesday, fell by the same score to Ithaca, out of Section 4, earlier this afternoon, as the Plainsmen's offense seems to have gone into hibernation.

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