Mike Dougherty

mdougher@lohud.com

MONSEY – It’s been a few years between celebrations.

The last time North Rockland beat Suffern in hockey, longtime Red Raiders coach Gary Dworkowitz was the squad’s water boy. Steven Apicella ended a 38-year losing streak on Monday at Sport-O-Rama, netting the winning goal with 19.4 seconds to play.

It was far more than a 3-2 win.

“Really, this is just one win, but it’s a really, really big one,” said Dylan Cool.

It was a confidence booster for a program on the rise.

“You can’t disregard that,” said Dworkowitz, who vividly remembers North Rockland beating a short-handed Mounties team in the Section 9 playoffs back in 1979 at Low-Tor. “But it wasn’t a sectional championship game.”

Perspective is a good thing in January.

Suffern was the more composed team in the early going. Experience in meaningful games is one thing the Red Raiders lack, and they were down 1-0 when Josh Abbott scored with 3:47gone in the first.

The goal appeared to settle the jagged nerves.

Dylan Cool knotted the score with 3:08 to play in the second, ripping a shot down the slot and past Suffern goalie Ryan Fueg.

“It came at the end of that shift and I was so tired,” he said. “I picked my head up and saw open ice, so I gave it a shot and hoped for the best. That’s all I remember. I was exhausted and had to hurry to the bench and throw up a little.”

North Rockland took a 2-1 lead early in the third period when Luke Morris scored on the power play, bringing a riled up student section to life, but Harrison Gdanski answered with with 4:56 remaining.

It was tense over the final minutes until Apicella followed Chris Hilliard into the zone and quickly pounced on a loose puck.

The crowd noise was defeaning.

“Chris was trying to make a move with the puck, but was poke-checked,” Apicella said. “The puck was left in the slot, so I shot low, blocker side. This one feels so great because we haven’t beat them in a crazy long time.”

Player of the game: Kenny Hoppe was brilliant in goal for the Red Raiders down the stretch and finished with 30 saves.

Turning point: Not getting rattled after Suffern got on the board first was huge for North Rockland, which doesn’t have a lot of seasoning in tightly-contested games.

Stat line: Ryan Fueg made 27 saves for the Mounties. … Gdanski also had the assist on the first goal.

Quotable: “It was definitely a buzzkill after they got the first goal,” Cool said. “That is something we really were hoping to do, but we knew that Kenny wasn’t bothered and we bounced right back.”

Twitter:@lohudhockey

