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Goalies immense as Kings top Admirals

By Chris Pantazis - | Feb 2, 2020

Photo by Jodie Andruskevih
Sal Pace (left) of the Alvirne-Milford Admirals and Stephan Robbe ( right) of the South-Pelham Kings battle along the boards in Saturday's game at Conway Arena in Nashua.

NASHUA – The South-Pelham Kings skated into their Saturday contest with the Alvirne-Milford Admirals at the Conway Arena late Saturday afternoon looking to continue playing improved hockey. And the scuffling Admirals were aiming to end a rough losing skid which had dropped their 2019-20 record down to a lowly 2-8.

As things worked out, truly superb performances by Admirals’ freshman goalie Brayden King and Kings’ veteran keeper Nate Serrentino ended up sitting at the very heart of a hard-fought, 3-1 South-Pelham win which, were it not for their stellar efforts, likely would have wound up being a 7-4 or even an 8-4 contest.

King ended up with 30 saves, some of which were of the spectacular variety, and Serrentino only made one less stop in helping his home-standing crew move to 3-2 in its last five battles.

Coaches Shawn Connors of South-Pelham and Dave Thibault of Alvirne-Milford both insisted that the opposing keepers’ efforts were well above and beyond the ordinary.

“Their goalie stood on his head, and there’s not much more to be said about that,” said Connors of the youthful King.

For his part Thibault, who has in fact coached South-Pelham Kings’ standout Serrentino in the past, said, “I actually think their goalie Nate stole the game for them.”

Connors’ crew was, like Alvirne-Milford, well beneath .500 at 3-7 rolling into the weekend battle. But they’d gone a promising 2-2 in their previous four contests.

So there were certainly reasons for optimism on the South front rolling into the non-divisional Saturday contest. The Kings are a Division I squad while the Admirals play in D-II.

But Dave Thibault’s Alvirne-Milford side sat in the midst of a rather frustrating six-game losing skid rolling into the Conway contest, with the locals’ most recent loss being a 5-4 edging at the hands of North-Souhegan on that same Nashua ice. During the losing skein Alvirne had been outscored by the pretty noteworthy tally of 32-10.

Thibault made it clear to his charges that he wanted them to begin the weekend game with intensity and fire, and they listened to their mentor. The Admirals throttled six shots on the South cage and Serrentino in the first minute of play, but the Kings’ keeper didn’t allow any of the blasts through.

South-Pelham’s first shot on the opposing cage came with 13:20 left in the first when Nolan Foss stole the puck and attempted to smack a backhander past keeper King. But the net-minder made the first of his 30 stops look easy.

Just under a minute later Alvirne-Milford notched the one and only lead it would grasp in this game when Sal Pace zinged a wrist shot from the right wing of the South zone into the netting behind

Serrentino.

The first period had an excellent pace, aggressiveness, and competitiveness throughout, with the teams combining for 27 shots and the Nashuans zinging 16 of them.

They knotted the score at 1-1 with 2:19 to go in the opening stanza when Foss rifled a wrist shot from the left point in the Alvirne zone with Ryan Desimone tipping it on the way in redirecting it past Admirals’ goalie King.

The score remained right there at 1-1 through a somewhat sloppier but still competitive second period, with Alvirne finishing with an 11-9 advantage in shots on net due in part to a late power-play.

The Kings had their best opportunity to bust the deadlock midway through the middle stanza when they got a 4-on-1 break on the Admirals’ goalie, but King made a huge stop with his right arm, with the puck deflecting over the net behind him.

The host Nashua side had another glittering chance to snag the lead four minutes into stanza three when John Pinksten skated in alone on a breakaway on Brayden King, and the goalie refused to allow enough room for a successful five-hole try by the shooter.

The standout freshman goalie from Milford would rob Pinksten on another glittering scoring chance four minutes later, and the large Conway crowd had to start thinking about the real possibility of

overtime.

However, the Nashuans potted what would prove to be the winning goal with 3:40 showing on the game clock when Camden Cole scored from close range, with Peter Gamache and Stephan Robbe notching the assists.

The score would move to 3-1 thanks to an open-net goal by Brandon Rheaume with 1:32 remaining to play, and the Kings would have their third win in their last five battles. Alvirne-Milford would, on the other hand, have a true hard-luck loss which extended its losing streak to seven games.

Emotions ran high within and without the South-Pelham locker room after the game, with some of the Kings feeling that they should have handled the scuffling Admirals more easily than they did.

But coach Connors was looking at his team’s glass as half-full as it strides further into the 2019-20

campaign.

“We had a rough start to the season playing some of the toughest teams in the division, but as the season goes on you tweak some things and have the kids get used to one another and start being able to anticipate each other, and that’s what we’ve been seeing,” he said.

Admirals’ mentor Thibault also felt that his team is showing distinct signs of improvement, especially by comparison with the way it played against South-Pelham in late December.

“We’ve improved on the power-play and in the penalty-kill, and we were definitely better against them today than we were in the holiday tournament,” he said.

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