Lead Stories, Sports

Tigers survive Garnet scare

Rye may have ended up on the short end of a one-goal loss to Mamaroneck on Jan. 10, but it certainly wasn’t for lack of effort. Battling back from a 2-0 deficit and outshooting the Tigers by 10 shots on Wednesday night, the Garnets were done in by a late goal from Mamaroneck defensemen Michael Carducci.

Declan Lavelle

For the Garnets, however, despite a few tough losses, the team has more than demonstrated its ability to hang with the toughest teams in Section I.

Carducci’s game-winner came with just 5:37 left in the third period, erasing a brilliant Garnet effort in the second period—led by goals from Declan Lavelle and Seamus Carroll—that saw them knot the score at 2-2. That kind of bad break, Rye coach Peter Thomas said, has been a familiar one this season.

Rye, at 4-8 on year, has dropped a number of close games to top-flight opponents.

“It almost seems like that’s what we’ve been doing; we lost to Clarkstown even though we outshot them 35-13,” Thomas said. “We will play great, but then have one or two lapses, and that’s where we get hurt.”

Seamus Carroll

Rye controlled the tempo throughout on Tuesday, outshooting the Tigers 23-13 despite surrendering the game’s first two goals. According to Thomas, the game was one of the more complete games the team has put together all season. But after tying the game at two, he sensed that his squad took its foot off the gas, which ultimately led to the late Tiger score.

“We set the tone early and forced them to be out of their comfort zone,” the coach said. “But once we stormed back and tied it up, you got a sense that we let up when we had them on the ropes, we got too comfortable.”

Escaping with the win, Mamaroneck will now set their sights on a Jan. 12 showdown with rival Suffern, while the Garnets will host John Jay on Jan. 24.

In the meantime, the Rye hockey team will be accepting canned goods, through January, at their home games—as well as at collection boxes located at the high school and middle school—as part of their annual Hockey vs. Hunger initiative. The Garnet team will then send the donations to the Carver Center Food Pantry, located in Port Chester.

“We know that the pantry gets most of its donations around Thanksgiving and Christmas-time,” Thomas said. “So we want to put together an organized effort to bring in these donations so they are stocked in January and February as well.”