
HAMMONTON—Chloe Comunale scored a pair of goals and Angelina Catania had six saves as Hammonton cruised past rival St. Joseph 4-1 on October 3 to complete a sweep of the season-series between the two teams.
“It’s always nice to get a win against them [St. Joseph],” Hammonton coach Kristen Silvesti said.
“Not only because of the rivalry, which gets the girls fired up, but also because they’re a really good team and in our division,” Silvesti said.
Hammonton was the more aggressive team early in the game, and after misfiring on a few shots, finally broke through with 7:49 remaining in the first quarter as Abby Goblirsch sent a pass to Comunale to give the Blue Devils a 1-0 lead.
A little more than three minutes later, with 4:21 left in the quarter, Kiley Kozlowski scored unassisted to put Hammonton on top 2-0.
St. Joseph quickly responded, keeping the game close with its best offensive stretch of the match. Less than a minute after giving up Kozlowski’s score, Emmah Devlin sent a shot past Catania to cut Hammonton’s lead in half.
The Wildcats kept the pressure on for the rest of the quarter, but never got closer, allowing two second-quarter goals that allowed Hammonton to pull away.
“We kind of let up for a couple of minutes there [after scoring the second goal]. That’s been a problem sometimes for us, we get ahead and then kind of relax and lose focus. But I think their [St. Joe’s] goal woke us back up and we picked up the intensity again in the second quarter,” Silvesti said.
Comunale scored her second goal just 43 seconds into the second quarter, and midway through the period, Gabrielle Childs added a score to give Hammonton a commanding 4-1 lead.
St. Joe continued to move the ball well in the second half, but was unable to capitalize on its scoring chances.
The win began a week that also saw Hammonton defeat Ocean City and Paul VI as the Blue Devils took control in the race for the Cape Atlantic League American Division title.
“This was a good win for us. Now we have to carry it into the next one and then the one after that. Then next week [October 9-13], we have more tough games. It doesn’t get any easier for us, but we’re playing good hockey and getting more confident every day,” Silvesti said.
For St. Joseph, the loss dropped the Wildcats below the .500 mark for the season as they work to secure a high seed in the South Jersey Non-Public playoffs.
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