Westfield Hockey Loses to Summit for Regular Season Title

When Westfield and Summit matchup on the ice it's always a fierce battle. And with a championship on the line, both teams turned up the heat even more.

In a hard played back-and-forth game, the Hilltoppers edged the Blue Devils 2-0 to capture the regular-season title of the Union County Conference at Warinanco Ice Rink in Roselle Wednesday night.

For Westfield, there was plenty of disappointment in the outcome, but not in the effort.

"We battled hard, "said Westfield coach Dennis Doherty. "We outshot them 18-4 in the third period. They did exactly what we told them. The goaltender for Summit played well, so you tip your cap to him. Sometimes the puck doesn't go in".

"We knew it was going to be hard going into it" said Westfield's Morgan Buggers. "We beat them before in the season, so we were a little confident. But things just didn't go our way. We're pretty upset. It was a close game, so I'm okay with it".

Summit got the scoring started at the 7:41 mark of the first period on a goal by senior Trevor Silverstein, his 17th of the season. He was assisted by Jeff Wycoff. The 1-0 lead held up until late in the third period when Timmy Yager was credited with a goal when a Westfield player threw his stick at the puck while trying to stop a breakaway on an empty net.

"You look at this, the goal they scored was garbage" added Doherty. "Then they get an empty-net goal, so they really didn't shoot one in on us. You move forward and you don't look back".

The Blue Devils outshot their opponents 29-18 for the game, but they were never able to get the puck past Jack , who had an outstanding night in the net.

Westfield defeated the Hilltoppers earlier in the season by a count of 7-4 on January 5th. They also played to a 0-0 tie in mid-December in their first meeting. Needless to say, this matchup has become one of the better rivalries in all of Union County in any sport over the past few years.

"It's been a season-long series, we play each other three or four times every year it seems" said Westfield coach Dennis Doherty. "It's always a battle. Kudos to them, they had a great season, it came down to the last game. You couldn't ask for much more than that".

The game also had ramifications on the seeding for the upcoming county tournament. With the win, Summit gets the top spot and a first round bye, while Westfield drops to the # 3 seed and will face-off against Dayton on Monday, a team they beat 5-1 earlier this week.

"We set some goals in the beginning of the year" Doherty said. "One was to win the league title, the other to win the playoffs. Now we go to step two. You don't look past Dayton on Monday. We play each game separately now. Dayton has a quality goalie (Jason Breit), we beat them but we had to throw 58 shots on net. The same thing is going to have to happen this Monday".

If the Blue Devils win, they would face the winner of Johnson-Scotch Plains.

Westfield has only lost three times since the new year, and now owns a mark of 14-5-4 overall. They wrapped up league play at 7-3-2.

"We need to go right through Dayton" Buggers said. "Then we'd have Johnson. We need to get them back. We tied it up late third period the last time we played them. We need to get them back".

Indeed, it looks like the Blue Devils are ready turn the heat up during tournament time.