By ALEX SPONSELLER The Bishop Hendricken hockey team rebounded after a tough loss to cruise past both Moses Brown and Mount St. Charles by 5-2 scores last week.

Prior to the puck drop on Friday against visiting Mount, the two teams held a moment of silence to honor former Mount coach Bill Belisle, who passed away recently at 92 years old.

Belisle is the winningest coach in US high school hockey history and guided the Mounties to 32 state championships.

“It was quite a tribute to be able to do this for Coach Belisle. We’ve learned a lot on and off the ice from Coach and his kids, it meant a lot,” said Hendricken coach Mike Soscia.

Mount would score early to take a quick 1-0 lead, but the Hendricken offense would take off and score three consecutive goals in the second period. Colton Whitfield would score a pair of goals while Drew Gayman added another.

Gayman would then add two more goals in the third period to give Hendricken the 5-1 lead which would put the game out of reach.

Soscia was happy to have Gayman back after a brief absence and to see him get the hat trick.

“It’s his first day back since coming back from COVID protocol and he stepped up to the plate. He showed that he missed playing and it was fun watching him go out and do what he loves to do,” Soscia said.

The Hawks were also thrilled to get a win over Mount, who knocked them out of the playoffs two seasons ago, and then was named their co-champion last year when the clubs’ championship series was called off due to the pandemic.

“This goes back two years now when the playoffs got shut down on us in the finals. Our guys got shortchanged and they had that in their minds the entire time. We had this date marked for awhile,” Soscia said.

Playing together as a unit led to the win and will help the Hawks reach their potential, according to Soscia.

“When we play together as a team, we are very strong and are very tough to play against. When we make stupid penalties, we beat ourselves. It’s a fun group of kids with great leadership, and everyone is buying into what they have to do to be successful,” said Soscia.

The Hawks were led by Nick DeFelice the previous game against Moses Brown.

Dylan Capelli scored to keep things at 1-1 after the first period. However, DeFelice would cruise in the final two frames to score four goals to give Hendricken the 5-2 victory.

The Hawks improved to 5-1 on the season with the wins and will next take on the Warwick boys co-op this Saturday night.