BY JONATHAN SKUZA
BROCKPORT, N.Y.– Milestones are a special moment for any high school athlete.
Max McKay scored his 100th career varsity point for the Churchville-Chili Saints as he assisted in their 9-4 victory against the Portside Royals Thursday evening.
“He’s a leader by example,” Churchville-Chili’s head coach Brian Young said. “He doesn’t say much. He’s a quiet kid, but he does speak very loudly on the scoresheet. He’s always putting points up and works his tail off. He can stick handle inside a phone booth. I tell him all the time because when the puck is in the corner and he’s going in, he comes out with it every time.”
“It just feels amazing,” McKay said of the milestone. “Coming from the first point all the way to 100, that’s a long road, but it feels so good to finally get there.
Mckay finished the night with three points giving him 101 career points and 38 points on the season.
The Saints opened the scoring when Jake Herring found the back of the net after crashing the net and causing a massive pile of bodies in front of the net five and a half minutes into the contest.
Grayson Galliford a minute later shot home a puck from the point for his first career varsity goal to give the Saints a 2-0 lead.
“These guys get really excited when the new guys and even former guys that don’t have a lot of success, start to have success,” Young stated about the tone of the bench when Galliford scored. “It’s like somebody scored their 100th point. It’s just such a good team. It’s such a good team mentality.”
Zachary Haines backhanded a puck from one knee to cut the Churchville lead in half at about the halfway mark of the first.
Trey Eberhart ripped one home from the point late in the period to regain the two-goal cushion for the Saints. 34 seconds later James Southcott scored to add to the lead.
Twenty-eight seconds after the Southcott goal, Eberhart fired home his second of the game and period to give the Saints a 5-1 lead going into the first intermission.
Portside did not go down without a fight. The Royals scored three goals in a matter of a minute and 27 seconds.
Brody Bonczyk started the scoring with his second goal of the season with 12:29 to go in the second.
Joseph Bagnato connected on the powerplay over a minute later to make it a two-score game.
Eleven seconds after the man advantage marker Justin Pastorella put one home to bring the Royals within one with just over 11 minutes left in the middle period.
McKay scored his first goal of the evening to give the Saints an insurance goal with 7:30 left in the period.
McKay’s 100th point came on the powerplay as he connected for his second goal of the night 24 seconds into the third period.
“I don’t really think about it that much,” McKay said about his impact on his team this season. “When you look back at it, it feels really nice. The team is doing good and you’re helping out.”
Parker Farnham added another powerplay tally five and a half minutes after the Mckay milestone. Farnham finished the game with five points with his powerplay goal and four assists.
Farnham leads Section V in points with 44 after his five-point performance.
“I play really well on my line and I think we just pass the well,” Farnham stated about his five-point performance. “We score a lot of goals and it gets the job done every night.”
Eberhart completed his first career hat trick with about 10 remaining in the game.
“I’m not going to be selfish and talk about myself,” Eberhart stated about his performance. “The team overall has played amazing. We didn’t give up in the second period when we got into a little bit of a slump. Third period we picked it up. What a night for these guys. It’s definitely a big one.”
The Saints finished the night 2-5 on the powerplay and the Royals went 1-2 with the man advantage.
Churchville avenged a 4-3 overtime loss against Portside on December 22.
“We’ve made a couple of changes as of recently and the guys have really bought into the way that we need to go out this year,” Young stated about his team’s performance. “These guys have made a quick change as of recent, and they’re committed to winning and that showed in the game against Schroeder. We were down 4-2 and came back and won 6-5 and then they came in here tonight with a mindset that they were going to come out and dominate and they did.”
Churchville-Chili (13-3-1) will return home to take on division rival Webster Thomas on January 31.
Portside (7-7-2) continue its four-game homestand as they welcome Batavia Notre Dame on January 31.
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