On November 10th, Northwood’s Junior hockey team traveled to Culver, Indiana, on one of the longest and toughest road trips of the year. The schedule for the showcase was anything but easy, starting on Friday with a game against their rival, Saint Andrews College. On Saturday, Northwood faced St. Laurent Patriots from Quebec. Sunday, the Huskies took on Shattuck Saint Mary’s, one of the best teams in the country.
The first game was highly anticipated, as Saint Andrews and Northwood have a long history as rivals, and over the last two years Northwood hasn’t lost a game to them. Saint Andrews came out playing hard, but Northwood was able to strike first with a goal from Patrick Callahan (Forward, 2018). However, Saint Andrews quickly responded and put two goals on the board quickly. Sam DiBitetto (Forward, 2018) was able to tie it, but it wasn’t enough as the opposition scored in the last two minutes to make it a 3-2 game. The pressure from Northwood was was unable able to tie it up, even with supportive goaltending from Jake Mucitelli ‘19. Sean Bunting (Forward, 2018) said “it was disappointing. We were expecting a better result, and it’s a tough one to swallow, especially losing to SAC.”
The Huskies’ second game was against St. Laurent Patriots, a hard nosed team from Quebec. The Huskies came out flying, scoring five fast goals and taking the game by a score of 5-1. The goals came from Drew Rose (Defense, 2019), Cody Monds (Forward, 2020, Tommy Bannister (Forward, 2020), Elijah Deveraux (Forward, 2020), and DiBitetto. Matt Shanklin (Forward, 2019) picked up 2 assists, and Rico DiMatteo ‘20 was very solid, stopping a total of 25 shots.
The Huskies ended the weekend facing off against Shattuck Saint Mary’s, who are highly skilled and one of the top teams in the country. It was battle from the beginning, as Shattuck scored quickly. Northwood responded with Callahan shooting one home, and afterwards it was an intense battle. Sadly, Shattuck eventually slipped away with a 8-4 win. Other Northwood goals came from Callahan and Monds, with two each. Overall, it was not the weekend the Huskies were looking for. Andrew Gilbert stated “We need to come in right from the get go and play a full 60 minutes, and also be more consistent.”
