Busy day ends in satisfying style for MC’s Serino

LOWELL – Saugus’ Christie Serino had some kind of a day Sunday. It was hectic, frenetic, and he spent half of it on the telephone and the other half behind the Malden Catholic bench at Tsongas Arena in Lowell.But he’ll take it.Serino, who is the coach of Malden Catholic, has four sons ? and all of them were in action this weekend. Matt was playing for UMass-Dartmouth in the ECAC South hockey championship – which the Corsairs won.Craig was playing up at Norwich ? and he still hadn’t heard how that game went (8-2, Norwich over Salem State) as his Lancers skated off the ice Sunday night after a 5-2 win in the state Division 1A hockey tournament over Xaverian.Nick was pitching for UMass-Amherst out at Arizona State, and lasted four innings before being removed.”Hey, that’s (Arizona State) the No. 21 team in the country, you know!” Serino said, his voice hoarse from a combination of a week’s worth of shouting and a cold. “I think that’s pretty good.”And, of course, there’s Tony. At least Serino didn’t have to have his cell phone dangling from his ear to find out how Tony was doing. All he had to do was watch him.Tony Serino collected two points in Sunday’s win, and the line of Serino, freshman Mike Vecchione – also of Saugus – and Alex Minter (another freshman), collected five points in all.The Lancers are now in very heady territory (this is their second time in the Elite Eight, and they lost all three games they played last year) as the No. 1 seed coming out of their round robin bracket. They swept the field in the three-game preliminary, and will now play in a single-elimination semifinal Wednesday (8 p.m.) at Tsongas Arena against Catholic Memorial (the Knights eked out a 3-2 overtime win over BC High to sneak in at No. 2 on their side of the field).”We’ve played them before,” said Serino, matter-of-factly, when asked whether he felt as if he’d received a tough assignment.”We lost to them twice, but we had two great games against them,” he said. “We can play with anyone in this tournament.”The teams are so close, in terms of overall talent, that if you show up, and play badly, you’re going to lose. If you show up and play well, you have a shot.”Malden Catholic and Reading – thus far – have been the class of the tournament at 3-0. The Lancers started out by defeating St. John’s Prep, 4-2, last Saturday and then won an emotional shootout over Hingham Friday, with Vecchione (who was wearing Serino’s No. 15) scoring the deciding goal.Sunday’s game started somewhat slowly – as one might expect when both teams had already advanced to the semifinals (Xaverian will play Reading at 6 p.m. Wednesday), but Serino and the Lancers weren’t holding anything back.”We tried to win the game,” he said. “Going in (to the next round) with a win is better than going in with a loss.”I think momentum carries a lot,” he said. “The kids are in the right frame of mind, and they concentrate better.”Malden Catholic scored twice in the first period to take command early. Greg Crovo scored the first one, with an assist from Minter, at 6:51, and then Zack Sheppard (from Crovo and Craig Charbonneau) made it 2-0 at 10:50.Justin Sencabaugh scored the lone goal in the middle period, but Serino was happy with the way the team played.”We played fantastic,” he said. “We held them to three shots. The strength of our team is our defense, and our forwards were doing a good job down low. Everyone played a pretty good game.”Both teams scored twice in the third period: Carbonneau and Mike Carr for Malden Catholic; and Matt Glennon and Chris Wagner for Xaverian.