Greece Athena/Odyssey 4, Suffern 2

Thunder 4, Suffern 2, Coliseum Arena

D&C Staff Reports 01/31/09

Pat Sofia, Riley Bourbonnais, Brandon Cheeseman and Greg Ryan scored as Athena/Odyssey (17-0) took the championship of the Liverpool Tournament. Sufferin-I led 2-0 early in the third. J.T. Stenglein had an assist and was named tournament MVP. Barker Bonus made 32 saves for the win.


Wes Vyverberg Reports

Game Report

Greece retuned for their pound of flesh against the #5 state ranked Suffern Mounties, who had blanked them 4-0 a year prior in the same Warrior Classic Championship game. It took them three full periods but Thunder got the retribution they came for and the hardware to boot as they defeated the Mounties 4-2 in a game that could have very easily slipped away. Who's suffer'n now?

After another boring, scoreless first frame with no penalties nor anything else worthy of mention, Thunder got an early wake-up call 5 seconds into the second when the Mounties charged forward on the opening face-off launching one from just inside the blue-line over the glove of Bonis to make it 1-0 Suffern. The Mounties would cash again, a minute and a half later with a rebound on the powerplay to advance their lead to 2-0.

Take a deep breath, there's a lot of game left. Halfway through the second, Thunder caught a break, when Riley Bourbonnais shot the puck wide right of the net from the half-wall, hitting the zamboni door and instead of the puck continuing on its expected trajectory around the boards, it kicked back out to Sofia who was standing to the right of the net below the goal line.

With the Suffern keeper on the far post, Sof deftly reached around and tucked the puck inside the goal, to put Thunder on the board. With this shot in the arm, Thunder's fore-check really picked up. Three and a half minutes later Dan Vyverberg won a 50-50 to get the puck deep. Then as the Suffern bench called for an ice, Bourbonnais gloved the errant clear in the high slot, set it down and sniped it under the cross-bar to knot the game at 2's. Stripes won the period after calling a total of 13 penalties to make up for none in the first and so we went to the break 4 on 4.

Thunder continued with their relentless fore-check going into the third, generating countless QSC and basically wearing the Mounties down. It was only a matter of time before Thunder would take the lead. Sure enough, ten minutes in, yesterday's MVP got today's winner, as Cheese came out of the corner, received a pass from JT Stenglein, and tucked it in short-side for the go ahead goal. It was 3-2 Thunder and on came the lights!

But stripes had to have center stage as they sent one and then another Thunder player to the box for holding, forcing Thunder to defend their lead with a 3-man disadvantage as Suffern pulled their goalie near the end. With a minute to go in the final kill of the game, Vyper lowered his stick to block a shot on the front-door, sending the puck into the corner, where Ryan quickly retrieved it, sending it down the ice and into the empty net to put the game out of reach at 4-2. How exciting is that?

Stars of the game were difficult to choose as this was a solid team effort across the board, however first star goes to Riley Bourbonnais for priming the pump with a goal and an assist; second star goes to tournament MVP, JT Stenglein, for setting up the winner; third star goes to Eric Gunderson who was stepping up in the neutral zone all game and made numerous rushes down the ice.

Shots were 46-34 in Thunder's favor. Bonis made 32 saves for his 11th win as Thunder advanced their record to 17-0, with a 4-2 result over Suffern. Thunder is back in action hosting the Irondequoit Eagles, 8pm tonite (Tues Feb 3) at the 'shore. Be sure to stop in the snack shop and "catch" this week's special... Chicken-Pot-Pie!