New York Turns On Power and Mariners Pay Penalty, 5-2

The Ventura Mariners squandered a two-goal lead and were defeated by New York Apple Core, 5-2, Saturday in the semifinals of the USA Hockey National Junior B Championships at Bridgewater Sports Arena.

Ventura (39-16-1), which handed New York its first defeat of the season with a 4-2 pool-play victory Thursday, surrendered three consecutive power-play goals in the second period after goals by Paul Goff and Stewart Pearce gave Ventura a 2-0 first-period advantage.

New York (36-1), which plays the defending champion Minnesota Kodiaks today for the championship, outshot the Mariners, 35-18, including a 14-3 margin in the second period.

“That was the hockey game,” Ventura Coach Sean McGillivray said. “We took some bad penalties and the second period buried us. We were killing penalties so much in the second period.”

Ventura’s Tate Madick took a charging penalty in the final seconds of the first period and Tim Kyrkostas scored New York’s first goal 58 seconds into the second period.

New York evened the score on a goal by Alan Richartz midway through the period while Ventura’s Bill Juenger was serving a penalty for checking from behind.

Jim Sedoruk scored the go-ahead goal six minutes later after Ventura’s Matt Szymanski was penalized for hooking.

Derek Kern scored 19 seconds into the third period and again with six minutes to play.

The Mariners had 30 penalty minutes to New York’s 14. Ironically, Ventura received a sportsmanship award Saturday for being the least-penalized team in the tournament.

“It was a really closely called game,” McGillivray said. “We knew that right after our first penalty.”

Goff opened the scoring 1 minute 41 seconds into the game by firing a pass from Kimu Mau’u past goalie Mike Filardo. Pearce followed with an unassisted goal, stealing the puck in the New York zone and beating Filardo with a low slap shot at 10:16.

Mike Gaddis made 30 saves for Ventura.