Catholic Memorial deals St. John’s icemen a haymaker

SALEM – For a period on Wednesday at Rockett Arena, Catholic Memorial was like a prizefighter who lulls his opponent into thinking they have the advantage before delivering the knockout blow.And when the Knights swung that haymaker, it landed with full force.CM broke a 2-2 tie with a late second period goal and an early third period goal at the No. 1 ranked Knights polished off a 5-2 win and a sweep of the Eagles in the regular season.”I thought we played a good game,” Eagles coach Kristian Hanson said. “The turning point was the power play goal with 3:00 left in the second. We made one mistake and they capitalized.”CM (10-0-3) pretty much dominated every part of the game after the first 15 minutes as the Knights wound up with a 40-19 shots on goal advantage and made life difficult for the Eagles in general all night.”As a coach, one of our philosophies is to not beat ourself and make it hard for the other team to play us,” CM coach Bill Hanson said. “And I think it was hard to play us (Wednesday).”The Eagles (6-5-3) started in grand fashion in front of a healthy crowd as Dan Haugh scored on the rebound of Colin Prior’s wrap-around attempt at the 30 second mark to give the Prep a quick lead.That lead lasted all of three minutes as defenseman Travis Jonasson started a trend with a wrist shot from the left point that got past Kyle Pettoruto to tie the game.”We have five talented people back there at the point and they are very intelligent,” Hanson said.CM grabbed the lead four minutes later as Mike Collins got started on a good night with the first of two goals, giving the Knights a 2-1 lead.The Eagles fought back just under a minute later as Haugh crashed the net and stuffed a Christian Cowles rebound between the legs of Tom Conlin to tie the game for the second time.”We made two gross errors in the first and it cost us two goals,” Bill Hanson said. “When you make those kind of mistakes, good teams capitalize.In the second period, CM got aggressive with its forecheck, sending one man in to pressure the puck and keeping two players along the boards to prevent any wide passes. The change worked as the Prep managed only seven shots in the second while the Knights swarmed Pettoruto at will.But it looked like the Eagles were going to get out with the game still tied at 2-2 until Justin DiRienzo was called for cross-checking at 11:49.It took only 11 seconds for CM to strike as Collins snapped a quick shot over Pettoruto’s shoulder and under the crossbar to give the Knights the lead heading to the third.”We had to weather the storm there and we didn’t,” Kris Hanson said. “And that’s why they are undefeated and ranked No. 1.”The Eagles plight didn’t get much better at the start of the third as Peter Starrett, who will ply his trade at Harvard next season, gave CM a 4-2 lead just 21 seconds into the third with another quick shot from the blue line.From there, the Knights clamped on the defense, holding the Prep to only four shots on net in the third. Ben Murphy’s shot through a screen at 9:27 closed out the scoring.