D-S Boys' Hockey Dominates Over Dighton-Rehoboth

FALL RIVER-The Dover-Sherborn boys’ ice hockey team dominated its preliminary round match-up against the combined Dighton-Rehoboth/Seekonk team. The Raiders built a 5-0 lead early in the third period and cruised to a 6-2 win.

The 19th seeded Raiders had an early scare when the Falcons had a shot ring off the crossbar inside the first minute of the game, but that was one of the few times that D-R came close to scoring until late in the third period. In fact D-S outshot the Falcons 37-9.

Cole Tibbets opened the scoring six minutes into the game as he slid across the crease and stuffed home a backhand. Despite their dominance the Raiders could not find the goal to break it open thanks in large part to Falcons goalie Jacob Robitaille who made a string of great saves.

The game finally broke open with 6:22 left in the second period when Geoff Eckles picked the top corner and, just over a minute later, Brendon Jaeger stole the puck, split two defenders at the blue line and fired a wrist-shot under the crossbar to make it 3-0.

“We wanted to come out and force the issue and be aggressive,” said Coach Jeff Moore. “We had a couple of shots that got by him and that helped us get the separation.”

The Raiders cleared off a power play to end the second period and, rather than sit on their three goal lead, they stormed out of the gates in the final period. Eckles scored his second goal of the game before Jack Henderson’s shot from the point made it 5-0.

Coach Moore talked about how important it was to stay focused even after building a lead, “We didn’t want to sit back because anything can happen in these games. We wanted to finish the game strong. It felt good to get the lead and tack it on instead of making it interesting.”

Corey Colangelo started in goal for the Raiders and Jack Condon took over in the third period. An awkward bounce off a defenseman and a slip by a defender allowed the Falcons on the board but with 3:59 left Matt Davies capped the scoring with a tap-in on the far post.

The win puts Dover-Sherborn (8-5-8) into the first round of the Division 3-South Sectional and the Raiders will take on third seed Pembroke, last year’s sectional champs, at a date and location are still to be determined.