Rockets hockey fell short Friday night in their game against Whitman. Hindered largely by the absence of senior goalie Ben Polster, the team was defeated 7-1.
Before the game, a 9-2 loss to undefeated Churchill before winter break could not come close to killing the excitement that buzzed through the team Friday night. A few jokes and laughs bounced across the Rocket’s locker room, but when the coaches walked in, they were all business.
“We needed to improve on attacking the opponent with the puck a lot more quickly […] I told the team after the break that I really wanted to come back and challenge our opponents,” Head Coach Dave Martella said. The suspension of Polster, the team’s only goalie, left RM scrambling to find someone essentially willing to stand in front of a goal and be pelted with flying rubber disks for forty-five minutes.
Sophomore Albert Zhang was that someone.
Weighed down by what was probably 20 pounds of goalie padding, Zhang skated out to take his place in front of the goal. Out on center ice, however, stood senior Jack Blitz, who would take the opening face-off. Friday was the first time Blitz, a captain and offensive powerhouse, suited up in RM colors since a knee injury forced him off the ice a couple weeks into the hockey season. “It gave me a different perspective, watching from the stands, and I saw how well we can work together even when we’re missing some people,” he said.
The puck dropped for the first face-off and Blitz snagged possession for the Rockets. A few passes made their way across the ice before Blitz took the puck down through the middle, searing past Whitman defenders to take a quick shot that was blocked and sucked back by the Vikings, foreshadowing the game to come. Everything would be back and forth, possession flipping between teams throughout the three periods.
Nerves had settled in when Zhang took his place in front of their goal, but after blocking Whitman’s first few shots, he “was very happy and kind of relieved, since he was really scared he’d let in every goal.” Captains David Hoddinot and Jordan Kochman led RM’s relentless defense, keeping a hard press on the Vikings and relieving some of the pressure from Zhang.
A shot that slipped underneath Zhang’s legs put Whitman up 1-0 in the middle of the first period. Later in the first, a hooking call would send a frustrated freshman, defenseman Kenneth Trinh, to the penalty box for two minutes, leaving the Rockets a man down for a penalty that would trickle into the second period.
After two Whitman goals and a cross-checking penalty against RM’s Julia Kochman, sophomore forward Dmitry Bilous rose to the occasion and sent a rebound to the back of the net, scoring one for the Rockets with 25 seconds left in the second period. The Vikings answered back with another goal right before the end of the period, then a few others later in the third that would end the game 7-1.
Nevertheless, RM flooded the ice once the last buzzer went off, engulfing Zhang in a wave of black and gold.
Head coach Dave Martella couldn’t have been prouder of Zhang, who had never played goalie before and ended the game with a phenomenal 73% save percentage. “[Zhang’s] performance in goal tonight was one of the most courageous hockey performances I have ever seen,” Martella said after the game. “He pulled a miracle for this team, and they played extra hard for him.”
Both Blitz and Coach Martella believe possession will be key in the games to come. “A lot of hockey is about getting the puck into the opposing team’s zone and maintaining control of it. Too often we shoot, the goalie saves it, and we lose possession. We want to control it and pass it around until we can get a good shot on goal,” said Coach Martella.
“Now that we’ve got the whole team back together, it’s just gonna make everything a lot more fun and give us a better second half of the season,” Blitz said.
The hockey team will face Walter Johnson next Wednesday in an attempt to redeem themselves from their 9-0 loss to the Wildcats back in December.
