The Pioneers Survive!

Monday night in Voorhees, the Clearview Pioneers hosted the Eastern Vikings in a matchup in the final of the losers bracket to see who can redeem their loss earlier in the regular bracket to advance to the final to face Shawnee. The first period ended the way it started, scoreless. Clearview’s Logan Graham was a brick wall in net in the first period making amazing saves while doing a split or laying his body on the line to save the puck. Not long after the puck dropped to start the second period, Nick Rockey fired a rocket to the back of the net to send the Clearview student section into a frenzy. The score became 1-0 in the second period only within a few minutes. After a few more saves by Graham in net, Eastern finally climbed even when Sean Pomerantz sent a wrist shot into the nylon to knot it up at 1 a piece. The second period ended as a 1-1 tie.

As we headed to the third period for the final fifteen minutes of regulation, it only took the Pioneers less than three minutes to break the tie when Connor Reagan got his name on the score sheet making it a 2-1 game with 12:04 left to play. Just as fast as Clearview broke the tie, Eastern tied it right back up as Luke Riley found the back of the net making it a 2-2 game with 10:28 left in the third. After a few scuffles and pushing and shoving on the ice, Clearview pulled ahead mid-way through the final period as Nick Rockey scored again to take a 3-2 lead to silence the Eastern student section. Logan Graham decided the net would be closed the rest of the game as he shut down any shot that came his way from the Vikings players.

Clearview held on to take a 3-2 win into the finals against Shawnee. Coach Michael Wolk said after the game that the key to finding success over Shawnee will be “out working and out hustling” them ahead of the matchup. “They’re (Shawnee) a very very hard working team, and they keep coming at you. On top of that their goalkeeper is just absolutely fantastic. They have a lot of leaders on their team and they all click at the same time. I’m expecting them to come full force and that’s just what we have to do back”.

Chris Baker from NJ Athletics. You can reach Chris on Twitter (@cbake_51) or you can reach him by email (cbake2025@gmail.com). Be sure to check out NJ Athletics on Instagram (@NJAthletics) and on Twitter (@nj_athletcs)

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