Last night, the Hinsdale Central boys hockey team played the Fenwick Friars in an out-of-league battle at Willowbrook Ice Arena that ended in a 4-3 victory for the Devils. 

The game looked set from the beginning when Fenwick forward Sean Pondelicek put one into the back of the net thirty seconds into the game, which he closely followed up with a second goal. Pondelicek scored these two goals before the clock even reached single digits with only a minute and a half to separate them.

Friar goalie Spencer Lisek let a goal in from junior WIll Romberger with just four minutes to go in the first period. Romberger was assisted in the goal by senior Chase Coghill and was able to bring home the scoring drive, putting the Devils on the board with a score of 1-2, Friar game. 

With 1:30 left on the clock, Friar forward Michael Verni scored. This brought the Fenwick total to 1-3, an unfortunate score for the Devils, who were projected to win the game. This was the last goal of the period to round out an unexpected start to the game for the Red Devils. 

Neither goalie let any shots in during the first half of the second period but it appeared the Devils were beginning to find their skates under them once more. The trend of a rocky first period is not new to the 22-23 Devils team as they often appear to forget how to communicate during the start of the game. Regardless, they are still a top team in the Illinois West Conference and are large contenders for a state bid come March.

Once they had cleared their communication issues and seven minutes into the second period, Captain Zach Devine passed the puck to Captain Alexander Hadesman and set him up perfectly to score. This was the first of three Devine-Hadesman goals of the game and it brought the score up to 2-3.

With thirty seconds to go in the second period, Lisek let a shot from Hadesman sail into the net, and the Devils were ready to play. Once again it was the Devine-Hadesman duo, bringing the score to a tie at 3-3, and proving their spots as captains. 

The Devils looked much like themselves again when they came back after intermission. Two minutes in, Hadesman wrapped around the net and put the puck squarely through Lisek’s legs, giving the Devils a small amount of breathing room with a score of 4-3. 

The rest of the game the Friars could not successfully score, though they had a total of ten shots on the goal during the third period alone. Goalie Miles Anderson did a beautiful job defending as he was assisted by Romberger and sophomore Jack Crabb for the rest of the game. 

With three of the four points scored coming from Hadesman, he once again skated away with the title of MVP. Time and time again, both Hadesman and Devine have shown why they were given the title of captain. The two have scored a majority of the total team points this season and are numbers 16 and 2 in the Illinois West Conference respectively. 

As the regular season comes to an end, the Devils play the Neuqua Valley Wildcats this Saturday, 1-14. This is followed in two weeks by senior night against Sandburg. Both of those games are at home, and both have large ramifications at the state level.