After a tough loss on Friday, Smithfield came up with a simple way to return to form

SMITHFIELD — After losing to Barrington in a shootout on Friday, Monday’s early afternoon start against Cumberland was exactly what the Smithfield hockey team needed.

“It’s just wake up and play hockey,” Sentinels’ captain Jacob Hopkins said. “There’s not much to think about when you’re just playing hockey.”

With Friday’s loss a distant memory, Smithfield came in did just that. The Sentinels dominated play and while they had little to show for it, they came alive in the second period before rolling to a 9-1 win over the Clippers that keeps them near the top of the Division I standings.

“After the [Barrington] game, we were feeling down,” said Smithfield’s Joe McConaghy, who had two goals on Monday. “We know we can compete with them but we came out here and bounced back.”

With how Smithfield played, it wasn’t hard to see why the result went the way it did. Here’s what stood out in the matinee:

Smithfield got an early wakeup call

The Sentinels were in charge from the first drop of the puck. They commanded the puck in the neutral zone and didn’t waste time working it into the offensive end to get good chances on the net. When Cumberland did reverse the ice, it didn’t stay there for long.

Problem for Smithfield was, it didn’t have much to show for it.

“We had our forwards going through, they’re getting open, flying around and they made it easy for the defense,” said Hopkins, Smithfield’s top line defenseman. “We get the puck to them, they get into the zone cleanly and getting shots.

“That’s all you can ask for. Keep getting shots, they’re going to go into the net eventually.”

While Cumberland goalie Isabelle Beitler had other ideas for the first 10 minutes of the period — most other goalies would have given up one or two with what the Sentinels were throwing at her — Smithfield finally lit the lamp when McConaghy scored with 3:15 left in the first period.

The goal was what the Sentinels were looking for, but the lead lasted for all of 45 seconds after Cumberland’s Gavyn Freiberger scored the equalizer and the teams went to the second period tied at 1.

“After you score your first goal of the game and you get the lead, you might not be thinking ‘oh, we still have to play defense,’ ” Hopkins said. “They come down and popped one and then we just kind of locked in and realized we have to keep going.”

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Power plays changed the game

Cumberland was hit with two penalties early in the second period and Smithfield wasted no time in converting the 5-on-3 opportunity. Jacob Boudreau scored first and it wasn’t long after that Hopkins put one home on the power play to make it a 3-1 game.

“Having a two-man advantage is very huge,” McConaghy said. “You have to capitalize on those opportunities. We were feeling good after that.”

Before the period ended, McConaghy put home his second of the day and Seamus Dickson added one to send Smithfield to the locker room up, 5-1. The Sentinels came out still on fire and scored two quick ones in the third before adding two more later.

“We were playing faster than them. It seemed every time we got the puck, we went right by them,” Hopkins said. “Just pass to pass, every time tape to tape and it was getting to them and it finally started clicking for us. The scoreboard went up from there.”

Smithfield’s response showed a lot

Friday’s matchup against Barrington was a battle between the two best public school teams in the state, but losing in a shootout is the type of thing that could derail a team in a hurry.

Instead, the Sentinels decided to learn from the loss.

“There’s always ups and downs during the season,” McConaghy said. “We wanted to bounce back against this team and we did a very good job with that.”

The favorites in Division I have established themselves. Prout — with wins over Hendricken on Friday and a 2-1 victory over Mount St. Charles on Monday — is currently the top dog, with the Hawks and La Salle nipping at their heels.

Smithfield is trying to play its way into the conversation and winning the way it did against Cumberland shows just how good of a team it is.

“We took Prout right to the end of the game and it was just a couple of quick ones,” said Hopkins, referencing last month’s 5-2 loss to the undefeated Crusaders. “We’re just going to keep going. We can beat anybody, we know that; we don’t need anybody else to tell us because we believe in ourselves so we’re just going to go as far as we can and people are going to be surprised.”

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Smithfield boys hockey dominates in Division I win over Cumberland on Monday