Resilient Revere boys hockey frustrates Beverly

SALEM – The Beverly hockey team got a dose of its own medicine on Saturday night at Rockett Arena in Salem thanks to Revere.The Patriots, defending champions of the Northeastern Conference, played arguably their best game of the season, holding Beverly to 20 shots on goal while rattling off the final four goals of the game to erase a 1-0 deficit and take a surprising 4-1 victory.”We really needed this,” Revere coach Jim Palumbo said. “We had to play a good team and feel good about how we played and we did that (Saturday). We seem to be playing better every game.”The game was a coming-out party for one of the top players in the NEC that no one knew about in Patriot defenseman Chris Mastropietro.A converted forward, Mastropietro blazed a trail up, down, around and through the Beverly defense all game long. He scored twice and assisted on a third goal while also delivering the game’s biggest bang – a hip check that sent Beverly’s Chris Bushey head over heels late in the third period.”Chris is a really good player and he’s just now learning how to finish plays off,” Palumbo said.For Beverly, which lost its third game in a row since getting off to a 5-1-1 start, it wasn’t a pretty effort. The Panthers took 10 penalties in the game, resulting in seven power-play chances for Revere.That lack of discipline had the attention of coach Bob Gilligan.”We have to stop being selfish,” Gilligan said. “And start taking a look at disciplining ourself. It got away from us because we started losing our composure and you can’t play like that.”Things didn’t start off badly for Beverly as Bushey’s redirection of Conor Walsh’s drive from the left point gave the Panthers a 1-0 lead just 2:05 in. Unfortunately, it was all downhill from there for Beverly.Mastropietro got the Patriots (4-3-2) even 81 seconds later when he broke in alone and beat freshman Tony Walsh on a backhander to tie things up.Play became wide-open from there, with both teams having several chances to take the lead. But Revere’s Nick Dimare and Walsh wouldn’t let that happen until Mastropietro took things into his own hands.Flying through the neutral zone, Mastropietro saw his shot from the right circle get blocked. Anthony Noel tapped the loose puck back to Rich McLaughlin for a wrist shot over Walsh’s glove and a 2-1 lead with 4:43 left in the first.Things didn’t get any better for Beverly with time running down as Jay Sasso’s blind backhander off Danny Pizzi’s pass from behind the net somehow found its way between Walsh’s legs to give Revere a 3-1 lead after one period.C.J. Cacciatore replaced Walsh in the Beverly net at the start of the second period and was able to calm the Panthers for a little while. But frustration began to set in for Beverly because the Patriot defense was stymieing the Panthers at every turn.That anger resulted in four consecutive Revere power plays, the last of which was a 5-on-3 with 1:23 left in the second. The Patriots capitalized with a play that many NHL teams couldn’t have worked any better.Defenseman Shane Doyle fed Noel in the right circle. Noel in turn hit Mastropietro at the left post to complete the tic-tac-toe passing and extend Revere’s lead to 4-1 after two.”They got a lot of shots on net in the first period, but they really weren’t quality shots,” Palumbo said. “But in the second and third, we became more aggressive to the puck and limited their chances.”The Panthers, try as they might, were unable to get anything going in the third. The only scare for Revere came with 1:30 left when Jack Leathersich’s shot broke off Dimare’s pads, but he was able to dive back and keep the puck out of the net with his goal stick.