NOVA player pushes puck toward goal past JMU player. / Photo by: Arch Scurlock

After losing to George Mason University on Jan. 21, it still looked like the Northern Virginia Community College ice hockey team had a chance to make the Blue Ridge Hockey Conference playoffs. But it appeared it would take wins over both the College of William and Mary and James Madison University over the Jan. 28 weekend to do so. Instead, it turned into a double debacle weekend.

The first game was on Friday, Jan. 28 at 10:45 p.m., opposing William and Mary at the Mount Vernon ice rink. W&M stood atop the Northeast section of the Atlantic Division with a 7-2 record. In the earlier game at William and Mary, NOVA was given a forfeit win as W&M had some administrative problems in setting up the game.

In this game, in the first period with W&M one player down due to penalty, W&M scored on a two-on-two breakaway, with the puck barely going into the net with 11:44 remaining. NOVA quickly struck back as defenseman Nelson DeSilva scored from the right side from about 12 feet out at 11:11 to even it at 1-1.

Thereafter in the period, W&M had several breakaways, giving the goalie little chance of blocking the shot. The first occurred with 4:29 left when W&M scored another short-handed goal with six seconds left in the penalty when a W&M player broke away from several players to go one on one with the goalie and scored. Within a half minute, W&M scored again and with 3:10 in the period, W&M scored on another breakaway for a 4-1 lead, causing a NOVA timeout.

In the remaining three minutes, W&M received a two-minute penalty at 2:30, but NOVA lost the player advantage with two-minute penalties at 1:37 and 1:20.

Finally, with 12.4 seconds to go, NOVA goalie Joe Aronhime suffered an injured knee and Phil Helm came in as his replacement.

NOVA and JMU teams meet at JMU goal to discuss matters. / Photo by: Arch Scurlock

So despite shots being fairly equal in the first period, better shots by W&M had given them the lead. Also, W&M seemed to have several very speedy skaters with the puck which NOVA players seemed to have a hard time keeping up with at times.

In the second period, W&M kept up the pressure and was not only scoring from up close but from a distance. Penalties were relatively few, and NOVA was unable to take advantage of two power plays as they were held scoreless in the period.

A blow to NOVA’s chances in the game occurred with 2.7 seconds remaining, when W&M roared in a goal from about 30 feet straight out from the net, making it 8-1 after two periods.

W&M was up 11-1 when NOVA finally scored again, at 5:37 on a power play shot by Taylor Witt in front of the goal.

The game ended 12-2, apparently assuring W&M a spot in the playoff.

For W&M, Jay Soliuzzo played a particularly strong offensive game, scoring three goals.

After the game, NOVA’s coach, Barrett Haga, remarked, “A few quick goals. We were dominated the first 10 minutes. And a few quick goals knocked the wind out of our sail.

It’ll be a very tough road to the playoffs now. They have to win tomorrow night. We’ve had some big losses. Chemistry. It’s all about chemistry. We lost a lot of players this spring. We’re trying to get that chemistry back. Once we get our chemistry back, we will be fine. Whether we get it back in time is the question. I think [W&M] is the best in the Atlantic Division.”

The next night, NOVA went to the Rockville Ice Arena to host Atlantic Division foe James Madison University, which it had lost to 5-2 earlier in the season

In the first period, NOVA seemed to have recovered well from the previous night’s lopsided defeat, as Chris Altice and Jake Sullivan scored goals for NOVA though JMU took a 3-2 lead into the second period.

In the second period, NOVA dominated the first 10 minutes; unfortunately none of its shots found the net. NOVA had had its chances, and then JMU began gathering momentum. It scored its fourth goal with 8:57 to go on a power play, then quickly came back to score another at 8:37. NOVA survived being two players down, but NOVA was still a player down when JMU scored again at 6:15 to make it 6-2.

NOVA did manage to regain some hope for coming back in the last period as James Powers scored at 2:21 to cut the deficit to 6-3.

NOVA’s hopes were quickly squashed by JMU in the first minute of the third period, though, as it scored at 19:53 and 19:30 to make it 8-3. Thereafter it was mostly all JMU as it took a 13-3 lead with about eight minutes to go, at which point the 10-goal deficit rule mercifully started the clock running continuously as JMU finally took a 15-3 win.

After two crushing defeats, the last thing that the team would likely have wanted was to be playing the strongest team on its schedule in the next game. But that was the case as NOVA traveled north of Baltimore to meet Colonial Division leading Loyola with its 11-1 division record at Ice World on Feb. 5. Loyola was coming off an 11-1 pummeling of division foe Catholic University the previous night.

Loyola appeared to be used to the cold rink, as the depleted NOVA squad of 13 played hard but were shut out 12-0 as Loyola goalie’s TJ Upton, making his first start, stopped the meager 20 shots that NOVA launched at him.

Loyola led 3-0 after one period, 6-0 after two. At the second-period intermission, Loyola must have decided they were really going to start powering the puck at the goal. So they did, scoring at 19:39, 19:04, 17:18, and 15:37 for a 10-0 lead. They slowed down slightly for the rest of the period.

NOVA coach Barrett Haga shared some thoughts.

“They are number five in the country. With only 12 guys, we played quite well. I’m real proud of the team today. It’s a building year, and we’re looking forward to next year. Hopefully we’ll get some guys back grade-wise,” he said.

“We did well in the Atlantic Division almost .500, 4-5-1. [We] missed the playoffs by a game. We knew this would be a tough game. Considering they’re number five in the country, this isn’t a bad game. We played two-and-a-half solid periods. The first six minutes of the third killed us. Other than that, it’s probably the best game we’ve played in a while.”

The NOVA ice hockey team concludes its season Feb. 26 and Feb. 27 in Hampton where it will play against the Hampton Roads Junior Whalers. For the year, it notched victories over VMI and Roanoke, a memorable overtime win over GMU and a forfeit win over W&M.

By: Arch Scurlock

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