Thanks to Julie O’Brien for the pictures!   Maybe not the best played game of the season but certainly one of the most exciting . . . A really interesting late season intersectional game that saw Bishop Moore travel south on Saturday to face a red hot Benjamin team and BM returned north with the hard fought 11-10 OT win on Parker Blystone’s solo effort down the right wing with 2:16 left in the OT period. BM rallied from an early 5-0 deficit behind the combined 8 goals from sophomore Jake Kiefer and Christain Di Paolo, all of them unassisted, after Griffin Bowie led Benjamin to the early lead with a four point first quarter.  Bishop Moore was able to offset a number of advantages that Benjamin tends to have, including holding their own at the faceoff circle and in the ground ball battle.  They also got off 40 shots to Benjamin’s 25 and over time changed the game into something that Benjamin wasn’t comfortable playing that day. Basketball fans would recognize how this game played out.  A running, pressing team being pushed into a half court game, and the half court team eventually found a way to catch up.  The teams combined for 37 turnovers, which also was uncharacteristic. But there’s no point in denying that Bishop Moore kept their poise early when it was looking like they would be overwhelmed, finding a way to impose their will, and coming back to pull the game out late.  It’s hard to point to any sort of turning point in the game.  Benjamin took a 7-2 lead midway through the second and at that point the Bishop Moore defense was able to take over their half of the field as Benjamin went nearly 18 minutes between the 2nd and the 3rd without scoring and Bishop Moore was able to creep back in it with 3 goals in that span.  A late Benjamin goal in the third restored a 3-goal lead. But Bishop Moore really turned up the heat with 2 goals in the first minute of the fourth to make it 8-7 and the game intensity really turned up and the teams went back and forth in the 4th, including two lead changes and two ties in the frenetic last 5 minutes. I don’t think that anyone watching this one in person felt cheated after the game . . . it was a Final Four style game.     For each team it poses a new look at the season. For Benjamin it was an unexpected loss.  Not because they were the overwhelming favorite, but because it took themselves out of the momentum-induced comfort zone they had created with the decisive wins over Jupiter and LHP and that they looked to have control of this game.  They will work on rediscovering that confidence they played with and get back to what was working well recently. For Bishop Moore it was arguably the best win of Coach Reynolds’ tenure and a major confidence booster after the disappointing last minute loss to LHP.  They have been close the last few years to a true signature win for the program and now they have one.  How that affects them in the playoffs will be a big storyline in their quadrant.  A quadrant that many prognosticators basically would concede to LHP in the past is now FULL of landmines, with Hagerty, LHP, West Orange and Bishop Moore now looking like the likely four qualifiers on one half and Tampa Jesuit, Newsome, Berkeley Prep and Plant all looking to jockey for the Final Eight spot on the other side. Benjamin and Jupiter will be dueling for the playoff slot in their quadrant and a suddenly resurgent St. Edward’s is waiting in Round One to face the survivor.  We have already seen one game in that scenario and it was a one goal game too. It really makes it a lot of fun if uncertainly is widespread . . .     Benjamin started the game as if it was another remake of Fast and Furious.  5 shots on goal and all 5 hit net for the early 5-0 lead.  Christian Cropp opened the scoring off the Bowie feed from right GLE as he cut the right wing and his low shot hit the right corner at 11:05.  Bowie made it 2-0 at 10:03 as he dodged down the left wing and he was able to get off the right hand shot into the right top corner.  Less than a minute later he made it 3-0 on a left wing spin move and a shot to the same spot.  Peter Reed made it 4-0 with 4:09 remaining after taking a behind the net feed from Michael Buttelman for the right wing shot to the top right and at 2:47 it was Bowie finishing the fast break with the left wing step down off Grant Bretzlaff’s top right skip pass for 5-0.  Kiefer made it 5-1 with 1:22 left as he curled from behind the right side and powered his way to a left hand shot in front. 37 seconds into the second it was 5-2 as Kiefer curled from the left side this time and hit the top left corner.  Buttelman quickly responded 40 seconds later off Bowie’s feed from the left wing to the right crease and Buttelman finished all alone in front.  At 8:35 the lead went to 7-2 on Reed’s middle dodge, beating two defenders and going between BM goalie Mikey Randazzo’s legs.  BM cut that to 7-3 at 3:40 off the fast break as Kiefer took the Matthew Oyler feed on the low left wing as his shot found the far side, hip high to end the half. Kiefer made it 7-4 at 9:12 of the third as he faked a pass and curled from behind the right side for the left hand low shot and a little over a minute later it was DiPaolo working behind the net and when he defender stumbled he went to the net, scoring with the underhand shot to close it to 7-5.  Later in the period Benjamin took advantage of the EMO as Buttelman found Chase Farriss with the top right wing skip pass to the left wing for Farriss’ shot to the low right at 2:41 for the low right corner shot to make it 8-5 after three.     BM stormed out in the fourth with two goals in 44 seconds to make it 8-7.  Hudson Bohn popped forward the opening faceoff and went down the middle for the top right corner finish and then DiPaolo took advantage of a quick Benjamin penalty as Brett Heneghan found him in the middle from the top right for the step down that beat Benjamin goalie Austin Michels hip high on the right side.  The teams went back and forth for awhile until BM tied it up with 5:00 on the clock as Kiefer worked the right wing and he spun left for the left hand shot to the low left side for 8-8.  Benjamin regained the lead at 2:46 on their own EMO as Buttelman fed Cropp up top from behind for the step down bullet low to make it 9-8.  BM tied it again at 9 all with 1:10 left on Di Paolo’s dodge to the right side from the left and his shot went low.  After a technical call Benjamin was granted the EMO and Blake Erdmann took a pass on the low left and dodged back up a few steps, hitting the top right side to give Benjamin the lead with only 23 seconds left.  But after a brief battle at the dot, BM’s Bohn won possession and dashed down the middle to incredibly tie it with 11 seconds left. Probably the pre-ordained finish anyhow based on how this game played out. BM won the OT faceoff but did not convert and when Benjamin got possession they too did not convert and when BM took it back they made no mistake, with Blystone making his individual effort count for the OT winner. Boy, two straight OT games for me back to back.  After seeing only one in the regular season all year last year . . . It was a great game played by the kids on both sides.   Team Statistics   Faceoffs:  BM 12-10 Shots:  BM 40-25 Shots on Goal:  BM 19-15 Turnovers:  BM 19-18 Penalties:  BM 6-5   Individual Statistics   BM Jake Kiefer  5G Christian DiPaolo  3G Hudson Bohn  2G Parker Blystone  1G Matthew Oyler and Brett Heneghan with 1A each Mikey Randazzo with 5 saves   Benjamin Griffin Bowie  3G/2A Michael Buttelman  1G/3A Christian Cropp and Peter Reed with 2G each Chase Farriss and Blake Erdmann with 1G each Grant Bretzlaff  1A Austin Michels with 8 saves   Thanks to Coach Rye and Coach Reynolds for talking to me before and after the game