Horace Greeley/John Jay holds on to advance on the ice

Clockwise from top left, John Jay senior Brendan Asta tries to score off a rebound in the crease  for Horace Greely/John Jay. Henry Millhon makes a pass in playoff victory. Frankie Epstein clears on defense from behind the net. Jack Hartney looks to make a pass from the point. Emmet Geller makes a stick save in goal. Jim MacLean Photos

By JIM MACLEAN 

When you see an opportunity in the playoffs, you have to pounce on it and take advantage. John Jay senior Brendan Asta saw the opportunity and he started yelling loud and clear to make sure his teammate Henry Millhon saw it too.

He did, and he made a perfect pass to Asta racing up the ice all alone at full speed. Asta raced into the zone on a breakaway and finished it off for a short-handed goal to turn the momentum.

“I wanted to make sure he noticed me and he did and made a great pass,” admitted Asta when asked about his shout out to Millhon. “(Ryan) Marcus pushed it up to Henry, he batted it out of the air, sick play, and he saw me racing down the ice and I just had to finish it off.”

Less than two minutes later, still killing off the penalty, the duo combined again in reverse order as Asta made a long pass to Millhon and he finished it off for another shorthanded goal. That proved to be the winning goal in a 4-3 victory for Horace Greeley/John Jay (HG/JJ) to advance.

“Oh yeah, I knew he was going to make it, he doesn’t miss that pass,” Millhon said of his goal off the assist from Asta. “Our backs against the wall, that’s when we played our best. We persevered.”

Every ice hockey team knows that anything can happen in the playoffs and all it takes is one hot goalie to pull an upset, and those two shorthanded goals would prove to be the difference. HG/JJ entered the game as the number-five seed hosting number eight-seed Cortlandt in the first round of the Section 1 Division 1 tournament on Feb. 19, at the Brewster Ice Arena. HG/JJ had defeated the Rebels twice during the regular season, but the first period was an omen that this was not going to be an easy victory on the ice as the two teams finished the period locked in a scoreless tie.

HG/JJ struck first early in the second period as Brody Stogsdill scored a goal off assists from Asta and Freddie Gross, but the Rebels were able to tie it up two minutes later with a power play goal.

Asta was able to break the tie with his first goal of the game off an assist from Stogsdill as HG/JJ went into the locker room at the end of the second period holding a 2-1 lead.

However, Cortlandt was fired up by a strong game from goalie Brendan DiBenedetto as he came up with a lot of big saves in the first two periods as HG/JJ outshot the Rebels 26-11. The Rebels came out strong to start the third period and seemed to take control of the action, and with nine minutes left that one-goal lead was in jeopardy as HG/JJ would have to kill off a five-minute major penalty.

That was when Asta and Millhon answered the call and rallied HG/JJ with a pair of shorthanded goals and a 4-1 lead as goalie Emmet Geller and the defense killed off the rest of the penalty.

With time winding down after killing the penalty and scoring twice, the momentum seemed to be with HG/JJ, but the Rebels answered back. With two minutes left to play Nate Herbert scored to cut the lead down to 4-2 and give the Rebels life. Then 30 seconds later he scored again to make it a one-goal game with 1:28 left to play. Pulling the goalie for an extra skater, the Rebels tried to get the equalizer, but Geller and the defense was up to the challenge and closed out the victory. Geller was credited with 16 saves overall for HG/JJ, while DiBenedetto made 28 saves for the Rebels.

“A one-goal lead is never fun, and then giving them a five-minute major, that was tough,” admitted HG/JJ coach Alex Lichorat. “Our M.O. has been trying to find a way to survive and we did that with those two shorthanded goals. Their goalie played a heck of a game and made it difficult. In the second period they took control and we lost the momentum. Starting out the third period with that major was not good and we were on our heels. Asta was the game-changer, he goes out there to kill penalties and he creates chances to score and that was great. They didn’t give up and they were in it the whole way to the end.”

With the victory, HG/JJ advanced to the quarterfinals on the road to face number-four seed North Rockland on Wednesday, Feb. 25, at Sport-o-Rama in Monsey.