Naventi Hat Trick Lifts Taconic to Western Mass Semis

PITTSFIELD, Mass. – Four minutes into the second period, with his team up by one goal, Taconic’s Luke Naventi was hauled down on a breakaway opportunity and awarded a penalty shot.

 

He then misfired on the PK.

 

But Naventi did not miss much the rest of the way, scoring three goals and assisting on another to lead the Thunder to an 8-5 win over Chicopee in the Western Massachusetts Class B Quarter-Finals.

 

“I couldn’t let that define me,” Naventi said. “That was a brutal miss. I knew I had to get something back.”

 

Forty-one seconds after that miss, Naventi on the power play with help from Ella Kroboth and Ethan Bishop to give Taconic a 4-2 lead.

 

Thirty seconds after that goal, Naventi again lit the lamp on assists from Bishop and Alex Jerebtsov, and the Thunder never looked back.

 

Jackson Schneider scored twice, and J.J. Schneider made 39 saves to send Taconic into Tuesday’s semi-final round.

 

The third-seeded Thunder (7–9-1) will face No. 2 Easthampton on Tuesday morning at Olympia Ice Arena for the right to play the winner of Tuesday evening’s game between No. 1 McCann Tech and either Agawam or Amherst, who were scheduled to play later Monday.

 

Chicopee, which dropped a pair of games to Taconic in their two February meetings, including a 6-1 Thunder win just five days earlier, drew first blood in Monday’s matinee.

 

Braydon LaDuke scored on a breakaway in the first minute to give the visitors a 1-0 lead.

 

Taconic then answered a minute later, setting the tone for the high-scoring game when Bishop converted a Philip Enoch assist to tie it.

 

In addition to the scoring, the game’s other defining characteristic was penalties – 19 of them between the two teams. And the Pacers converted their first power play opportunity to take a 2-1 lead on Nolan Brown’s goal midway through the first period.

 

Again, Taconic had the answer – first, with Jackson Schneider converting a rebound and then with Johnny Ireland converting putting one back with a power play goal in the 13th minute to send Taconic to the locker room up, 3-2.

 

The Thunder went on to go 4-for-10 on power play opportunities, not counting the penalty shot.

 

Right from the start, the sixth-seeded Pacers (1-13-2) showed no inclination to miss an opportunity to take a shot at a Taconic player.

 

“All game long I was telling them not to get involved in that,” Taconic coach Matt Risley said. “There were hits after the play, after the whistle. They put themselves in that position, so all we could do is take advantage of it, and we did a couple of times. So good for us.

 

“I was proud of the restraint that we showed, because I was on them all game long about that.”

 

Naventi’s two goals in the first six minutes of the second period gave Taconic a working margin at 5-2, but Chicopee’s Brendan Corcoran went top shelf for a goal midway through the period to get the margin back to two.

 

After more trips to the box for both teams ate up the middle portion of the stanza, Jackson Schneider scored his second of the game on a 5-on-3 opportunity that sent the Thunder to the second intermission up, 6-3.

 

A power play that carried over from the second to the third period led to Naventi’s third goal of the afternoon to make it 7-3 with 14 minutes, 16 seconds left to play.

 

Chicopee did not give up, instead peppering J.J. Schneider with 20 third-quarter shots on goal. But he turned aside enough to maintain the lead until Jerebtsov (one goal, two assists) iced the game with an empty net goal with 24 seconds left.

 

“He played solid,” Risley said. “He had a lot of deflections in front of him. They made it tough on him. They gave us a good game. We put it away in the end, but it was definitely touch and go there for a little bit.”

 

Photos from this game to come.