Gulls Head Into Break on High Note

Dec. 13, 2004

The Endicott Gulls brought the curtain down on the first half to their 2004-05 season in impressive fashion with a convincing 5-1 win over a tough-but-undermanned Bates College squad. The balanced Endicott attack got goals from five different players, tireless penalty-killing from Joe Dudek, Dennis Uhlman and Mike Tonucci, stifling defense from all seven blueliners, and steady goaltending from junior Jeff Pardue to seal the win and push the Gulls overall record to 10-4-1, and 4-3-1 in the New England College hockey Association's East Division.

Junior Adam Partaledis set the tone at the 12:17 mark, when he jumped off the bench during a line change with the Gulls pressing, and headed straight for the high slot. Mike Manfredi, gliding at the top of the left face-off circle, found the streaking Partaledis, put the puck on his stick, and the Endicott captain snapped it home through the legs of Bates goaltender Evan Langweiler for a 1-0 lead. Two minutes later, Manfredi got a goal of his own. With the Gulls on a power play, Manfredi collected the puck in his own end, charged up the right side, went wide on the Bates defender and circled behind the net. When Bates backed off, Manfredi went for the short side, flicking a shot that Langweiler stopped before banging in the rebound for the eventual game-winner.

Bates nearly pulled within one a minute later, but a breakaway attempt ended with a Bates shot glancing off the right post and harmlessly into the corner. Bates did get on the board with two minutes left, with the Gulls playing shorthanded. Mike Medeiros floated a shot from the right point that hit a scrum of players in front. The puck fell to an opportunistic Craig Blake, who popped it past a lunging Pardue to send the Bobcats into the locker room with the momentum. It wouldn't last.

At the four-minute mark of the second period, sophomore Tim Murphy, playing his best game of the season, put the Gulls up 3-1. Changing on the fly with Partaledis, Murphy raced to the net, collected a loose puck on his forehand, switched to his backhand and flicked the biscuit deftly into the lower right corner of the net, just past Langweiler's outstretched pad. Freshman Chris Garofalo nearly got Endicott's fourth goal put his blistering slap shot from just inside the blue line caught the underside of the crossbar, deflected straight down and was cleared by Bates. Pardue also had an acrobatic stop, denying Bates on a power play when he reached behind to pull the puck off the goal line with his catching glove with 8:21 gone.

With less than seven minutes left in the second stanza, the Gulls notched another power play score when defenseman Scott Vaughan, off a nice feed from Dudek, ripped a shot from the right point that found its way through a maze of players and into the back of the net for a 4-1 Endicott margin. Vaughan's twin brother Mark got the final goal on a remarkable individual effort 7½ minutes into the final period. Showing glimpses of Bruins great Cam Neely, Vaughan went steamrolling up the right side, twice pulling the puck across his body, first left, then right, and completely tying the Bates defenseman in knots before roofing the puck top-self past Langweiler. It was the icing on a total team effort for the night, and a solid first half of the season.

Endicott's returns to the ice after the semester break against Worcester Polytechnic Institute on Saturday, Jan. 29. The game will start at 7 p.m. at the Pingree School in Hamilton.