PICKING IT UP: Princeton Day School boys’ hockey goalie Drew Picker, right, guards the crease as Cooper Fang looks on. Last Wednesday, junior Picker made 49 saves in a losing cause as PDS fell 2-1 in overtime to Lawrenceville. The Panthers, now 2-11, host Gloucester Catholic on January 29, Red Bank Catholic on February 2, and St. Augustine on February 3. (Photo by Frank Jacobs III)
By Bill Alden
In a corner of the Lawrenceville School rink last Wednesday night, Drew Picker went through his off-ice paces to get psyched as he got ready to play goalie for the Princeton Day School boys’ hockey team.
“An hour before I get some balls going and do some plyometrics and get it going,” said Picker.
With a standing-room only crowd of about 800 packing the rink, Picker and his teammates were fired up for their battle with the Big Red.
“This is the No. 1 game of the season, we all know it is a big thing for everybody,” said Picker. “We post for weeks for people to come and we get ready. Hundreds of people showed up. It was electric.”
In the first period, Picker had to weather a storm, making 21 saves as the local rivals battled to a scoreless stalemate.
“It got me into a groove because in certain games where I am not on the spot when I don’t get a lot of shifts in the beginning,” said Picker. “I like getting a lot of shots in the beginning. It wakes me up, it gets me going. I am like seeing these 20 shots, I can finish it off.”
Surviving the early onslaught by the Big Red, PDS started to find a rhythm as the contest went on.
“After the first period we started controlling the game,” said Picker. “We getting more shots. In the second period we definitely got more momentum. In the third period, it was really close. I would say our fans definitely helped us out too, cheering, chanting, chirping.”
There was a lot to cheer about in the hard-fought contest as Lawrenceville took a 1-0 lead with 3:51 left in regulation. PDS answered back two minutes later with a tally by Marshall Matyszczak to force overtime. In the OT, the Big Red pulled out the win, scoring a goal with 2:45 left in the extra session.
While Picker was disappointed by the result, he was proud of his performance as he ended up with 49 saves on the evening as the Panthers moved to 2-11.
“It is definitely a confidence builder for me with all of the shots,” said Picker. “You can’t do anything about the last one, it happens.”
Taking over the starting role in goal for PDS this winter, Picker has sharpened his focus between the pipes.
“I am just more on top of things,” said Picker, who has piled up 356 saves this season with a save percentage of .886. “I am more ready for games and just more consistent than last year and the year before.”
PDS head coach Scott Bertoli knew his players would be ready to battle in the rivalry showdown.
“As an athlete, as a competitor, it is hard not to get excited,” said Bertoli. “You want to bring your absolute best and ultimately do whatever you can do to help your teammates, help our program, and help the school. It is a huge community event. It is so incredible to see all of the support we get, especially in a situation where we have struggled this year. Our record is not strong and to still see that turnout and that support is awesome. I am grateful for that, the kids are grateful.”
Although the loss stung, the PDS players were grateful for the opportunity to compete against the Big Red.
“They want to run it back, they want to play it again,” said Bertoli. “My older kids are, ‘I can’t believe that we are not going to get to do that again. It was so much fun.’ My last message to them going out was, everything aside, you need to enjoy this. You need to enjoy it because most of you will never play in a situation like this again.”
The Panthers did find themselves in a tough situation as they were outshot 21-6 in the first period.
“We expected that, that is typically what happens,” said Bertoli. “They are always going to be a bigger, older team than us. The fact that we were able to get through was largely because of our goaltending.”
After getting through that, PDS picked up its game. “We played better in the second period,” said Bertoli. “I think we outshot them, not that we outplayed them by any means. We definitely played a better game. We got a little tired in the third because we played a lot of the same kids.”
Fighting through fatigue, the Panthers didn’t hang their heads after falling behind late in the contest.
“That was huge, Marshall had a good game,” said Bertoli, referring to the tying goal. “I thought we had the most Grade A chances of anyone. It was an awesome response. A lot of games this year when that would happen, it would have deflated them. It could have gone two or three to nothing and it would be over. After we had a response and pushed it to overtime, you can’t script it any better for the people that are watching and truthfully for the kids on both sides. It didn’t end up the way we wanted it to but to just be in that environment and play in that situation was great.”
Picker certainly provided PDS with a great performance. “It reminded me of Calvin Fenton here a few years ago,” said Bertoli of the team’s previous starting goalie who made 45 saves in a 3-2 win over Lawrenceville in January 2024. “You saw it early, he just made a lot of routine saves on hard chances he was seeing. He was controlling the puck. We talk about it all of the time, we want as many whistles as possible. We want him to freeze the puck as much as he can to slow the game down and he did it all game long. He made some unbelievable stops. He was great.”
Junior star defensemen Tyler Nevrotski spearheaded a solid effort on the blue line.
“That is where we are the most inexperienced,” added Bertoli. “I thought they held their own. They did what they needed to do.”
While senior standout forwards Filip Kacmarsky and Fred Ringblom didn’t find the back of the net, they were all over the ice against the Big Red.
“We ask a lot of them and they generally respond and give us what we need out of them,” said Bertoli. “They did tonight. I am sure they are disappointed. Like all of these kids, they want to score but they were great. They played a ton. We play a 57-minute game and they played 28, 30 minutes each.”
Looking ahead, Bertoli hopes his squad will keep competing with the intensity that it displayed against Lawrenceville.
“Overall I am really proud of the way they played,” said Bertoli, whose team hosts Gloucester Catholic on January 29, Red Bank Catholic on February 2, and St. Augustine on February 3. “At the end of the day, we still lost a hockey game. We need to build off of it and I hope we will. There was a lot of energy when I went in there after the game. We need to win some games in the Gordon [Conference] and the states. I challenged them with that. You are obviously not going to have 800 people watching the game but you can control whether you bring it and if you do, you can play with anyone.”
Picker, for his part, is confident that the Panthers will bring it as they head into postseason action.
“We are definitely going to build off of this and keep going,” said Picker. “We will focus on states and see what comes.”