Gettysburg Falls Short in Season Opener

 

September 22, 2014

 

The curtain has opened on a new season at Gettysburg College.  The hockey team has a lot of new happenings this season.  They have entered a new conference, hired a new coach and enlisted a bunch of fresh new faces.  It may take some time for all of these new facets to come together as one fine-oiled unit.  But hopefully sooner rather than later.

 

The young Bullet team got their opening test this past weekend against Catholic University, a non-conference matchup.  The game started slow for the Bullets as they were playing like it was their first game, with nerves and summer rust.  Freshman goaltender, Thomas Pelchat had to be strong early as Catholic generated a number of chances.  However, they were able to capitalize twice in the period leaving the Bullets in a 2-0 hole after one.

 

Gettysburg began waking up in the second period as they generated a number of quality scoring chances but were unable to solve the Catholic goaltender.  Midway through the period Gettysburg was killing a penalty and senior captain Mike Berestecky blocked a shot and went in all alone on the goalie but was denied.  Later in the period Gettysburg was on a 5 on 3 powerplay but was only able to muster a few post and crossbar shots, nothing behind the Catholic goaltender.  In the final minute of the period, Gettysburg was on another powerplay but this time it was Catholic who blocked the shot from the point and went in on a two-on-one and slipped it past Pelchat.  Gettysburg had a three goal deficit to overcome in the third.

 

That deficit would be that much harder as in the first two minutes Catholic netted a fourth goal and Gettysburg had a 4 goal mountain in front of them.  Midway through the period, when the outlook was looking grim, Gettysburg had a flicker of hope.  Freshman defenseman Charlie Baetjer, hit junior Josh Pettengill with a breaking pass who in turn beat the defenseman and roofed a backhand past the goalie for their first goal.  Off the ensuing faceoff, Pettengill won the draw back to Baetjer who hit Berestecky with a pass and then threw it back to Pettengill who once again slid it under the goalie for his second goal in 13 seconds.  Catholic tried to stifle the momentum with a timeout.  But minutes later, it was the Pettengill line who had it deep and a scrum in front bounced to senior Zack Kennedy who put it home to pull the Bullets within one goal.  But unfortunately that is as far as the comeback would go.  Despite some last ditch efforts, the Bullets fell to Catholic 5-3. 

 

It was a good opening contest for the young Bullet team as they look to continue to mesh together.  There has been a scheduling change for next week as the Rutgers game needs to be rescheduled and we will keep you posted on the website for the team’s next game.  Thank you to everyone who attended this weekend’s game.