Wolves gain first win by icing St. Clair Shores

BY DAN STCIKRADT

SENIOR EDITOR

Dan.stickradt@northoaklandsports.com

BLOOMFIELD HILLS — Each season, Clarkston always loads up a brutally tough hockey schedule. But for the first time since launching its boys hockey program in 1997-98, the Wolves found themselves in a unfamiliar position after opening the season with a 0-4-0 record.

Clarkston finally weathered the storm Thursday at the Detroit Skate Club, topping visiting St. Clair Shores Unified, 4-1, in a non-league game to gain their first win of the young campaign.

“We needed it,” offered Clarkston coach Bryan Krygier. “We’ve got better in each of our games. But we’re young. We don’t have as many returning players that we’ve had and we’re a little inexperienced.”

Losses to Livonia Churchill, defending state champion Novi, South Lyon Unified and Brighton to open the season built a hunger for the Wolves, as the previous win for Clarkston came in last year’s Division 1 regional finals. The Wolves satisfied that hunger against the Lakers, who were a state-ranked team for much of last season.

Clarkston outshot St. Clair Shores 31-28 and simply outworked the Lakers throughout long stretches of the contest.

“Clarkston came ready to play and wanted it more. We came out flat and tried to play catch up the whole night. We didn’t play very good hockey,” offered St. Clair Shores Unified coach Ross Dicristofaro. “We just didn’t show up to play.”

Ironically, both teams won regional titles last season and reached the Division 1 state quarterfinals, with Clarkston falling to Novi and St. Clair Shores seeing its campaign ending against Lake Orion. The two teams scheduled the game for a reason as another early-season test. The Lakers, according to Dicristofaro, failed to compete at a high level.

“We thought that this would be a really god game. Clarkston is always a good, solid hockey team,” sighed Dicristofaro. “Our first outing with Farmington (United), we played a lot better. We battled for the puck and played clean hockey. Today, it was just penalties that killed us. We took eight penalties and that hurt us in the end.”

Clarkston notched what proved to be the game-winner with 1:13 left in the second period. Adam Bruderick banged home a close-range shot off assists by Joshua Sowers and Adam Larkin.

“I think once we scored that goal, that gave us some momentum,” offered Krygier. “Our goalie made some nice saves early and we just wore them down a little bit in the third period.”

The Wolves scored first with 9:05 left in the opening period when Jacob LaPorte tapped in a centering pass from Chase Wiedemann. Adam Bruderick also assisted on the play.

St. Clair Shores (1-1-0) knotted the game only 10 seconds after killing off a penalty, as Niko Grego finished off a close-range feed from Anthony Dockos with 9:22 left in the second period.

LaPorte and Garrett Polish scored third-period goals for Clarkston to ice the game. Laporte was left alone at the left post and he tipped in a pass from Bruderick with 7:32 left for the 3-1 advantage, while Polish capped the scoring by polishing of a breakaway pass from Adam Seel with only 30 seconds remaining in the contest.

“We’ll get better,” said Krygier. “We lost nine players (to graduation) and one of our best players from last year (Brad Pizzey is playing travel hockey). Losing him hurts some.”

Sophomore Jack Viazanko notched the win between the pipes by making saves on 27 of 28 shots for Clarkston. Joe Sedrowski made 27 saves for the Lakers.

Category: Clarkston, High School, High School (M-Z), Prep Wraps