By Brian Deakyne
WALL — For a half of a period, it looked like it was going to be Delbarton all over again.
One day removed from an 8-0 beat down from Delbarton, Christian Brothers Academy (1-1-1, no. 2) came out sluggish against Middletown South.
Then, it clicked.
The Colts applied pressure mid-way through the first period, and continued that to the second where they scored four of their six unanswered goals, en route to a 7-2 romping of the Eagles (1-1, no. 23), Sunday night at Jersey Shore Arena.
“There’s no doubt it was important, we needed it,” CBA head coach Ryan Bogan said. “It took us half a period to get it going. We’re a long ways away from where we want to be.”
Colt’s captain James Martello got CBA on the board, tying the game less than five minutes into the second period. After taking control of the puck in the neutral zone, Martello crossed the blue-line and ripped a wrist shot top shelf to tie the game.
“It was good to come out and get the pucks in the net,” Martello said. “Taking a blowout from Delbarton was tough but we got our confidence back. We felt so bad after last night.”
Later Troy Malone fed Anthony Cusanelli to give CBA the lead. Malone took the puck off the right wing and rocketed a pass to Cusanelli, who slipped the puck past Eagles’ netminder Shubhro Bose.
Dan Malafronte back-handed a shot into the net, and Kevin Crehan added a second period goal as well when he took a pass from Conor Tierney to give the Colts a comfortable four-goal lead.
“It was really important, we needed to bounce back,” Malafronte said. “There’s no better way to do it than to get seven goals and get the guys to start feeling good about themselves.”
Cusanelli, Malafronte and Crehan’s goals were scored within 1:36 of each other as they quickly left Middletown South in the dust.
“I think as a team we’re fairly immature,” Bogan said. “We’re not as mature as we want to be. There’s some seniors in the locker room that want to take leadership roles and it’s taking awhile.”
Glen Florczak and Chris Porter added power play goals in the third period to seal the Colts’ first win of the season, after a tie to St. Augustine and the loss to Delbarton. CBA killed off all six penalties they took and converted on two of their three powerplays. They out-shot the Eagles 35-16.
“I think once we scored, we got the nerves out and kept putting the pucks in the net. It just boosted our confidence,” Martello said.
Middletown South took the early lead when Zach England buried home a rebound off of Chris Connor’s shot less than five minutes into the game. The Eagles stood tall for the rest of the period, lead by Bose in net, but eventually, the talent of CBA took over.
“We had puck movement and they were moving their feet, and the energy level was up,” Malafronte said. “We just got the momentum.”
“After last year they were nail-biters. So to come out here and get seven on them feels good,” Bogan said.
Brendan Van Riemsdyk added a third-period goal, as well, being one of seven different goal-scorers for the Colts.
Tyler Ralph scored the Eagles second goal, ripping a shot off the left post and in, late in the third period.
“We play Brick on Wednesday,” Martello said. “We need to do the same thing to them that we did to South and roll through December.”
“It gives us confidence going into Brick Wednesday. It was a good game,” Malafronte said.
