PARIS — Despite a sizable difference in penalties and shots, Oxford Hills stayed close with Cony through the first half and into the second, twice rallying from one goal down to knot the score.

Eventually, the Rams had enough.

Sam Hopkins set up Brendan Surette and Jon Saban for goals 10 seconds apart late in the third quarter on an extended, unreleasable penalty to the Vikings and Cony tacked on another pair in the fourth to pull away for a 6-3 victory over Oxford Hills at the Gouin Athletic Complex on Saturday morning.

“We started to move a little bit more, we’d been standing still,” Cony coach Chad Foye said. “We started taking advantage of some of our fast-break chances, and those two things were big in the second half.”

After failing to capitalize on several man-up opportunities in the first half, Cony battled its own penalty trouble early in the second half immediately following a Nick Record tally for the Vikings that knotted the game at 2-2.

“The first half, we didn’t play with any intensity,” Foye said. “We didn’t play with a sense of urgency, and that slowed us down a little bit.”

The Rams (1-1) righted the ship late in the third. In the final 40 seconds of a two-minute advantage, Hopkins relayed a feed from Ryan Sounier down low to Surette, who wheeled and fired the ball past Oxford Hills keeper Tim Hutchinson.

“There were more penalties, and that opened the field up a bit,” Hopkins said. “There was more room to move. And we started to slow things down a bit and look for the open spots.”

Off the ensuing faceoff, Hopkins again found himself with the ball up high and this time fed Saban to give Cony its first two-goal cushion just 10 seconds later.

“The faceoff is a big deal for us,” Hopkins said. “When we win faceoffs, we usually are able to get a good pass in there and set things up, like we did there.”

“I thought we played well in the first half despite nine minutes in penalties,” Oxford Hills coach Matt Brunson said. “That was almost an entire quarter. When we got it to 2-2, that was a positive, but then they pulled away, and that hurt us, especially with the extra man.”

Both teams’ defenses locked down after that, as the Vikings pressed for the equalizer. With 6:18 to play, Tyler Leet beat Hutchinson after a loose ball fell seemingly out of nowhere into Leet’s cradle. He turned and fired high to push the lead to 5-2. Derek Elvin made it 6-2 as a pair of Vikings ran into him hard at the left wing. he released the shot just in time and it appeared to float past Hutchinson.

Oxford Hills (0-4) got one back 19 seconds later on a Connor Beebe shot, but could draw no closer.

“They dictated the tempo of the game, and we couldn’t apply enough pressure,” Brunson said. “They were the away team and they played like they were the home team

Despite the loss, Hutchinson was a bright spot for the Vikings, who have already played through a third of their 12-game schedule.

“He made some exceptional saves today,” Brunson said. “One of his strengths, he’s a big kid but he’s very light on his feet. He’ll keep us in a lot of these games. We have to develop some other aspects of the game.”

Sounier and Austin Chute traded goals early as the teams finished the first 12 minutes deadlocked at one, and Austin Davis scored the Rams’ second goal of the first half with 2:15 to play in the second quarter with a snipe to the top corner of the cage.

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