Wolfpack Hockey Beats Par-Hills, Advances to Haas Cup Semifinals

West Morris Central’s quest for its second consecutive Haas Cup continued as the Wolfpack visited Mennen Arena in Morristown, its old home, to take on the Vikings of Parsippany-Hills.

The Wolfpack, who defeated the Vikings via mercy rule on Jan. 10 , would have a greater challenge this time against Parsippany Hills goalie Deanna Meunier, who had 52 saves for the game. However, West Morris still got five shots past her, and the Wolfpack defense only allowed the Vikings to get 15 shots on goal on their way to a 5-0 victory.

“Their goalie played really well and did a tremendous job in net tonight,” said Wolfpack head coach Eric Jacobson. “We got a lot of shots off; I don’t think we got as many quality shots as we would have liked.”

The Wolfpack scored a pair of goals in the first period, the first by Kevin Cotter with 10:41 left to play. Center Chris Williams would add his lone goal of the game to put West Morris up 2-0.

Forward Eddie Hall would add two goals of his own in the second period, and teammate Billy Smith would score what would be the final goal of the game for the Wolfpack, putting his team up 5-0 over the Vikings with 1:20 remaining in the second.

Hall, Williams, and defenseman Zack Kosciolek each had a pair of assists, while Cotter and Trevor Peirson had one apiece.

After such a convincing victory earlier in the season, it would have been easy for West Morris to look past the Vikings. Still, the Wolfpack was focused enough—particularly on defense—to come away with a win.

“Our goal is to try to shut teams down defensively and try to minimize the amount of shots on goal,” said Jacobson. “We have two tremendous goalies who do a great job in net, which is an excellent thing. We have solid defensemen too, and we just need to keep up our intensity going forward.”

“I think we could have brought a little more intensity to the game,” continued Jacobson. “We did what we needed to do to win the game, we put the puck in the net when we needed to, and we’re looking forward to our next game against Montville on Thursday.”

Playing Montville, as West Morris has seen this season, will be no easy task. The last time the two teams played on Feb. 9, the . Now, the two teams will battle for the right to play for the Haas Cup.

“(Montville coach) Chuck Fisher has a great team in Montville,” said Jacobson. “They work very hard, and we tied the last time we played them. I expect we need to pick it up a little bit; (we need to) pick up our game and get organized.”