On Wednesday afternoon, Cushing Academy took an hour and half bus ride south to Easthampton to take on your Williston Wildcats.  Williston has yet to beat Cushing in the modern era and was hoping to use a big win over Avon and a strong showing versus Salisbury to push them to victory.  Sadly, it would have to wait until next year.

The puck dropped at 3:30 sharp on Wednesday afternoon and that was pretty much the only interesting thing that happened in the first period.  The play was sloppy on both ends with Cushing amassing six shots to Williston’s five.

While the second period pace picked up for the Wildcats, both teams entered the dressing room after eighteen minutes of play still knotted at zeroes.

The third period started evenly with both teams continuing to trade opportunities.  However, at the 5:55 mark, Cushing was able to beat Williston goalie, Xander Rogers on a 3 on 1 after the Wildcats failed to clear the puck out of their zone. Just under two minutes later, Williston again failed to clear the puck as a Cushing defender was able to keep the play alive. A pass went cross ice in the zone and a Cushing forward took a page out of Ovechkin’s playbook placing a one-timer over Rogers’ shoulder.  A little over two minutes later, however, and on the penalty kill, post-graduate Logan Geisness won a puck in the neutral zone and barreled down the right side on a breakaway.  As he cut to the left across the crease, he slid the puck between the goalie’s pads to cut the lead to one.  However, that was as close as the Wildcats would come.  Even with a 5 on 3 to end the game, Williston could not solve the Cushing penalty kill. Williston was 20/21 in shots while Rogers made 26/28 saves

Williston looks to get on the winning side of things on Friday night at 6pm as Academie St. Louis comes to town.  We hope to see you there!