“Between the 4 of us, someone’s usually there,” – Tony Mancuso #77
On Thursday, Nino, Erin, Dante and Tony could all be found on the Feature Rink at the Northtown Center. Playing their second to last game of the regular season, Icy Hot South was looking to keep their three game winning streak alive. Tied for first in wins with the Crashers and leading the league in points, Icy Red South seemed poised to keep the good times rolling against the sixth place Wolverines.
The first period got started off with a bang when Icy Red South put one home only 19 seconds in. From there, the rest of the first period featured some back and forth scoring with Jared Pristach getting it right back for the Wolverines only three minutes later.
Fortunately, James Copperthite, Mike Dentico and Dan Curr would able to get the lead back for Icy Red South, flexing the team’s offensive muscles over the first half of the period. The Wolverines didn’t lay down though and got two quick ones from Brian Hoffman and Andrew Brooks. The score would remain 4-3 for the rest of the period.
In the second period, the Mancuso’s finally got on the board when Nino and Erin teamed up for the first goal of the second. The team would pick up one more before the Wolverines’ Andrew Gruber got his team back to within two. Nino Mancuso picked up his second of the game just a few minutes later, pushing the score to 7-4, where it would stay until the third.
The two teams would go on to trade goals during the first half of the third, including tallies from Wolverines’ Brian Hoffman and Andrew Gruber and from Icy Red South’s Tony and Nino Mancuso. James Copperthite scored his second of the game just a few minutes later, putting the Wolverines in a 10-6 hole.
The Wolverines would pick up the next goal, but that would be it as they ultimately dropped this one, 10-7.
After that performance it is easy to see why the Mancuso’s are leading their team in every statistical category. Nino leads the team in goals with 32 while Erin leads in assists with 41, points with 65, shorthanded goals with 2, game winning goals with 3 and points per game with a rate of 3.42. Dante leads the team in Penalty Minutes with 26 and Tony in powerplay goals with 3. Overall the, the four rank 1st (Erin), 2nd (Nino) 3rd (Tony) and 8th (Dante) in team scoring.
Moreover though, they also have a pretty tight stranglehold on the Sports South Division scoring lead. The team’s top line of Nino, Erin and Tony are currently first, second and tied for third in league scoring. Erin leads the charge with 65 points while brother Nino ranks second with 52. Dad Tony caps off the highest scoring line in the league with 47 points.
They have one more game to see if they can perform a clean sweep of the top three spots of individual scoring this season.