The Bethlehem hockey team played well for two periods against Guilderland Saturday. Unfortunately for Bethlehem, it was the one period the Eagles didn’t play well that did them in.
Guilderland scored all of its goals in the first period and received some timely saves from Brendan Glennon to shut out Bethlehem 3-0 on senior night at Bethlehem Area YMCA.
Glennon made 21 saves, including several key stops in the last two periods to prevent the Eagles from gaining momentum.
If we had gotten that one goal, we would have definitely been back in the game, said Bethlehem coach Richard Hughes.
Joe Romano got Guilderland going within the first minute of the game when he took a pass from Ben Fogel and shot the puck past John Remmel for a 1-0 lead. Collin Burg, who also assisted on Romano’s tally, scored off a Fogel pass 3:14 later to double the Dutchmen’s lead.
`He’s a workhorse,` said Guil-derland coach John DeRubertis of Burg, who finished with a goal and an assist. `When he’s focused and determined and playing with discipline, he’s hard to take off the puck.`
Hughes replaced Remmel with T.J. Caswell, and the junior responded by stopping 29 of the 30 shots he faced. The only one that got by him was a power play goal by Fogel with 3:16 left in the first period.
`T.J. Caswell certainly kept us in the game. He kind of held us together,` said Hughes.
`To geth that third goal was huge because he shut us out the rest of the way,` said DeRubertis.
Bethlehem had several scoring opportunities from the midpoint of the second period through the final horn, but Glennon came up big to earn his first shutout.
`He’s starting to look like he’s a solid high school goaltender,` said DeRubertis of Glennon.
The Bethlehem win came two nights after Guilderland posted a 4-1 victory over Saratoga. Four players scored goals, and Glennon stopped 16 shots to pick up the win.
`We’re improving,` said DeRubertis. `When we lost to La-Salle 7-2 (Dec. 27), we gave up a couple of early goals, and we just gave up. Since that LaSalle game, the kids have refocused.`
Nick Stefani, John Potts, Jeff Geisendorfer and Luke Diamonte all scored goals to help Guilderland pull away from Saratoga. Fogel and Leland Murphy added assists.
The Dutchmen returned to action Tuesday when they played defending Section II, Division II champion Burnt Hills/Scotia-Glenville at Union College.“
