| Thursday - Long Island over NYC 11-3 |
July 26, 2007 - Long Island opened their first game of the 2007 Empire State Games with five straight goals spanning two quarters before the
New York City team was able to score. Jeff Cohen opened up with the first shot of the game, followed
shortly there after by the first goal of the game. Cohen, a high school All-American, leads the scoring
for all teams in the first day with 5 goals. Cohen controlled the ball and often seemed to just make
the ball go where he wanted it to go. He, along with Tom Palasek and John Conneely led the Long
Island offense with a combined 22 shots (of 41 total). Eight of the eleven goals contained at
least one of the three attackman (and often more then one). The three exceptions included two unassisted
goals by midfielder Matthew Cannone and a fast-break shot by long stick Keenan Ochwat.
Long Island led 3-0 after the first quarter. Each game on Thursday was played with 11 minute quarters
rather than the normal 12 minutes. Of the first five unanswered goals, Cohen scored three (the
second assisted by Zach Pall and the third by Palasek). Conneely scored one and Palasek scored
one (both unassisted). Forest Sonnenfeldt scored the opening goal for NYC at 4:18 left in the half.
42 seconds later John Rose, a long stick defenseman scored on a fast-break. Cohen added one more to
close out the first half and take a 6-2 lead into the break.
Ben Feldberg of NYC and Steven Rastivo of Long Island played in the goal in the first half. Feldberg
faced 16 shots and recorded 10 saves (63%) while Rastivo face only three shots and stopped 1 (33%).
The second half saw one of the top goalies of the first day as Michael Brockway took over for
New York City. John Carroll took to the nets for Long Island. Brockway faced 14 shots stopping
9 (64%). Carroll faced 4 shots stopping 3 (75%). Brockway not only had a 64% game, but also faced
a number of point blank shots making incredible saves. The New York City team recorded the second
highest total goalie percentage at 63%, but that is not an adequate representation of the quality
of shots that they faced. The New York City goalies were definitely the stars in the cage of the first
day.
The third quarter saw a much closer game with each team scoring one goal. The Long Island
goal came first as Oschwat scored his fast-break goal at 8:10. With about 2:00 remaining,  the NYC team was clearing the ball and after a warding-off
call the Long Island team, as they often do, quickly picked up the ball and began moving
it towards the cage. At this point, many watching expected Long Island to score, as the NYC defense
was spread out for the clear. Long Island had a 3-1 advantage just outside of the crease.
After two cross-crease passes Brockway came, with stick extended, across the cage to stop
Cohen and make a beautiful save. The ensuing clear was good and after a quick back and forth
play NYC scored their lone goal of the quarter with 0:45 remaining. Max Van Bourgondien scored
(assisted by Anthony Adler). The score was 7-3 for Long Island after three quarters.
Long Island continued the high scoring with four unanswered goals in the fourth quarter. Cannone
scored the first two goals only one minute apart and both with straight in drives from the top.
Conneely scored the third goal (assisted by Matthew Gibson). The final goal of the game scored by
Cohen (assisted by Palasek) with only 0:22 remaining.
Two of the eleven goals scored by Long Island were in extra-man on five attempts while NYC
failed to score on two attempts. Face-offs were also important as Zach Pall of Long Island won
13/16 (81%). Of Pall’s three losses two were due to technical calls. While four different
NYC players took face-offs, none of them were very successful. Pall, in addition to winning
the face-offs, often picked up the face-off ground balls.
Another major factor in the win came from the total number of shots and shots on goal. Long
Island took 41 shots with 30 on cage, while New York City took 13 shots (7 on cage). Additionally
Long Island won the ground ball battle 38-27. Finally Long Island also cleared at 92%, leading
all six teams, while holding NYC to 77%.
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