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Mountain Lakes rallied from behind to win in overtime over West Essex in a outstanding New Jersey ice hockey state tournament game. After going down by two goals in the second period, the Lakers had to regain their composure, dig deep and fight back proving that they are sports contenders, not pretenders.
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The Lakers started the scoring fest early in the first period with a great individual effort by freshman Jeff Celniker, beating the West Essex goalie with a nifty move. The Knights started to play better after giving up the early tally. Their intensity generated a power play that yielded the tying goal, which came off a pretty give and go between Travis Trent and Chris Shearin. Twenty seconds later Shearin scored on a deflection to give his team a 2-1 lead.
The Lakers dug deep and on an odd man rush, sophomore Billy Burgoyne tied the hockey game again with a wrist shot with just 14 seconds left in the first period.
The Knights’ Shearin scored again 45 second into the second period to regain the lead. Soon after, Alan Jacobsen scored to give West Essex a commanding 2 goal lead. Then, the hockey game began to get physical and bodies began to fly. Lakers' goalie Geoff Avery made several key saves to keep his team in the sports contest.
The Lakers went on a power play and shortly after the cut into the lead as Burgoyne netted his second of the evening. That made the score 4-3 heading to the final period.
The Lakers were the more aggressive team in the third period as both teams continue to play physical hockey. Seven minutes into the stanza, Celniker set up Nick D'Aloia for the tying goal. The game then became a goalie’s clinic as both Mike Cuozzo from West Essex and Avery stopped several quality chances for the rest of regulation and to start the overtime session.
Four minutes into the OT, freshman Alec Fernandez took a feed from Celniker, got behind the defensemen and deked Cuozzo to score, sending his team to the next round.
The Lakers come from behind triumph was a terrific effort by a talented young team that will move on to the next round to face defending New Jersey state champ Kinnelon on Saturday at Mennen Arena in the Public B quarterfinals. -- Emir Liguori for Jersey Sports Now
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