By Kieran Dougherty, Staff Writer
An unbelievable offensive performance by Gettysburg’s Matt Kalamar where he scored 12 goals including the overtime winner led the Bullets over the River Hawks 12-11 in Sunbury on November 6.
Despite the loss, the River Hawks executed all night on the offensive side of the ice. Gettysburg got the scoring started with a short-handed goal two minutes and forty seconds into the first period, but Chris Ciccarello quickly answered with his own goal less than a minute later. Gettysburg added two more goals before the end of the period, one with just 39 seconds left before intermission.
The River Hawks came out on fire to begin the second period, scoring three unanswered goals after Kalamar scored once again at the beginning of the period. Ciccarello, AJ Sferlazza, and Parker Baumann found the back of the net to tie the game at four, three minutes and 17 seconds into the second period.
The offensive explosion continued for the remainder of the second period with seven total goals scored in the last 16 minutes. Ciccarello, Baumann, Griffin Erdely and Liam Hartmann all beat the Bullet’s goalie. However, Kalamar did not stop either, scoring two more times in the period making it 9-6 in favor of Susquehanna entering the final period of play.
The River Hawks appeared to have their tenth goal right before the horn sounded, but the goal was disallowed with a very controversial call by the head referee, leading to Alex Stein receiving a 10-minute major penalty shortly after for arguing with the referee. The Bullet’s goalie had stopped the initial shot, but the puck clearly leaked into the net before a whistle was blown. The bench of the River Hawks was livid about the game-changing call.
Kalamar began the third period the same way that he finished the second, continuing to pepper River Hawks goalie Nic Manning and beating him twice more 9 minutes into the period bringing the Bullets within one. Goals by Kalamar and Stein made it a 10-9 game before Kalamar ripped off two more goals, giving the Bullets a 11-10 lead with 5:52 seconds remaining in regulation.
With time winding down, the River Hawks gutted out one more goal scored by Baumann to send the game into a 5 minute, three on three overtime. With both teams only having nine skaters, it was clear that fatigue had set in, at least for everyone except Kalamar. After a River Hawk penalty gave the Bullets a one-man advantage, Kalamar scored the game winning goal less than a minute into overtime, capping off an offensive performance for the ages.
The River Hawks played their hearts out, but the speed and skill of Kalamar was just too much to overcome, and the Bullets went home with the victory, dropping the River Hawks to 2-4 on the season.