While the offense was paced by senior captains Dylan Cass (4 goals and 1 assist) and Matt Bacigalupo (2 goals and 2 assists), the story of the night was the collective team effort from each of the Warhawks. Undaunted by giving up 2 goals in the first 1 min. 45 sec. of the game, the Warhawks fought right back to tie the game at 2 on two quick goals by Dylan Cass. Both team exchanged goals before the period ended, deadlocked at 3 goals each.
The defense took center stage in the second period shutting down the powerful Viking offense while Matt Bacigalupo put the Warhawks up by one with his second goal of the game midway through the period. The defense was led by the steady play of sophomore Noah Thompson and freshman Richard Zhang who stepped up to the challenge and played his best game of the season. And freshman defenseman Johna Ezzard gets the ironman…I mean ironwoman award for not only playing while under the weather…she had already played a game earlier in the evening for her Reston Raiders travel hockey team. Johna earned a lot of respect from her teammates with her performance tonight!
Adding to the offense were sophomores Alex Tudan and Mike Gros and freshmen Justin Shayne. Alex traded in his goalie equipment for skater’s equipment to do what he could to help the team. All three played an excellent two-way game, helping in both the offensive and defensive zones.
Unfortunately, fatigue set in during the third period. While the Warhawks answered several of the Viking goals in the third period, they found themselves down by one with less than a minute to play. Pulling goalie Dean Kern for an extra skater the Warhawks had several scoring chances including ringing the puck off the post in the final moments of the game but just could not tie the game before time ran out.
A shout out goes out to the group of Madison students who made the trek out to Ashburn to enthusiastically cheer on the team. The team gained a lot of energy from your support throughout the game.
For more info view game stats and photos.