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On March 21st, the Garden City Wings Varsity Ice Hockey team took on Hicksville High School in a semi-final
playoff game. In their previous meeting during the last week of the regular season, Hicksville earned a 6-3
victory over Garden City. Hicksville scored two minutes into the game to take an early 1-0 lead. With 5
minutes remaining in the period, Ryan Norell scored to tie the game with assists from Scott Mischner and
Nick Greco. The first period ended with the score tied at one.
No other scoring occurred during regulation time. The Wings played a tight defensive game. Senior
defensemen Brian Collins and Kevin Seiferth had outstanding games, with each logging over thirty
minutes of ice time. Mike Makris, Tom Rossidis, and David Brown all had great games against a very
good offensive Hicksville squad. All of the Garden City forwards contributed defensively with some
great back-checking during the evening. Centers Max Auricchio, Conor Reeves and Scott Mischner had
the added responsibility of shadowing the top Hicksville player throughout the game. Max Auricchio
took on the majority of that job midway through the game. Auricchio traded stick jabs, bumps, elbows,
and slashes with the Hicksville player for the last thirty minutes of the game and kept him from being
a factor in the contest.
After two sudden death overtime periods, the game still remained tied and was now going to be decided
by a shootout. A shootout round consists of five players from each team taking a penalty shot. In
the net for Garden City was goaltender Jeff Greco, who was fantastic during the game and had 35+ saves
prior to the start of the shootout. In the first shootout round, Aaron Kim scored the only Garden City
goal, but Jeff Greco saved 4 of the 5 Hicksville attempts and the game remained tied.
In the second shootout round, Conor Reeves scored the only goal for Garden City. Once again Jeff
Greco made four saves to keep Garden City tied.
In the third shootout round, Garden City trailed by a goal going into the last pair of shooters.
With Garden City facing elimination, Kevin Betts beat the Hicksville goaltender to tie the game.
The pressure then switched over to Jeff Greco. Jeff for the third time in a row made the save at
the end of the round to keep Garden City alive.
In the fourth round, Garden City got early goals from Kevin Seiferth and Max Auricchio. Garden City
led 2-1 as Ryan Norell stepped up as the last shooter for Garden City. Norell slid the puck past the
Hicksville goalie to win the game and send the Wings into the finals! Jeff Greco made 13 saves on 17
shots in the shootout.
Great team effort in the victory. Team members include Max Auricchio, Kevin Betts, David Brown,
Brian Collins, Matt Gaudiosi, Jeff Greco, Nick Greco, Tom Hickcox, Brian Kiernan, Aaron Kim,
Michael Lanciotti, David Logan, Michael Makris, Scott Mischner, Ryan Norell, Conor Reeves,
Kevin Rice, Tom Rossidis, Kevin Seiferth, Kyle Seiferth, and Conor Sweeney.
Game three, if necessary, of the finals will be on Saturday March 26th at 4:30pm at Iceworks in
Syosset. Please visit www.gcwings.org for additional information and updates on the Wings.
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