By Rich Fisher
Fish4scores.com
Feb. 11: History has been made.
For the first time since the Hamilton West and Nottingham high school ice hockey teams merged in 2012-13, the sister schools combined to win a Mercer County Tournament game today by taking a 6-1 victory over Pennington.
The 9th-seeded Northstars (7-10-1) will take on top-seeded Hun Wednesday at 9 p.m. The Raiders are the six-time defending champion but a confident Kiefer Goss claimed “They’re going to make a movie about us after that one.”
Nottingham leaned on its stars for big games, and the Northstars got them as Connor Luckie was in on every score with a goal and 5 assists, while Kathryn Truban had 5 assists. Trevor Bolton scored two late short-handed goals – his first of the season – to ice the victory. Anthony Dickinson, Kevin Kolczynski and Goss also scored while goalie David Thompson had 19 saves.
Nottingham was hurt by penalties but managed to kill them all as well as score two short-handed goals.
“I have the luxury of being able to look down my bench, find guys who are ready to go out and play and grind and work hard until we can get guys like Connor Luckie and Kevin Kolczynski back on the ice,” coach John Patterson said.
“It was crazy,” Bolton added. “To come out on top even with that many penalties, it’s a huge win. We just had to keep focusing and working hard, not let anything get in our head.”
To get Bolton’s and Goss’s thoughts on making history and the season in general, click on the above video.