Cohen, Rodgers guide Peabody over Marblehead

SALEM – On a night when Peabody senior Elijah Cohen scored his 100th career point, it was going to take a pretty big performance to steal the show.Well, Matt Rodgers did a pretty good job, too, on Wednesday at Rockett Arena as the junior had a natural hat trick to help the Tanners get past Marblehead, 5-3.”We played a great second and third period,” Peabody coach Mark Leonard said. “We challenged them after the first and they really came to play after that.”For Cohen, reaching the century mark was special considering the fact that he has missed what amounts to a full season due to injuries in his freshman and sophomore campaigns.”It feels pretty nice,” Cohen said. “It’s nice to get over the hump, and with the way it went last year and (the way) it’s been this year, it feels real good.”The Tanners’ second line proved to be the big difference in the game as Rodgers, Andrew Bucci and Derek Pereira were pains in the side of Marblehead all game.Bucci had a goal and two assists while Pereira dished out an assist to go along with Rodgers’ hat trick.”They’ve played street hockey together since they were five,” Leonard said of the trio. “They have good chemistry and know where each other are going to be.”The Headers (5-4-1) had the better of the play for most of the opening half of the game, but when Bucci tied the game midway through the second, things went downhill for Marblehead.”We gave up three goals in the third period that were not what we’re capable of doing defensively,” Marblehead coach Bob Jackson said. “Peabody wanted it more than we did and that’s frustrating.”The Headers kept Peabody under wraps in the first period and then took the lead with eight seconds left on the clock when Chris McLeod slammed home Ryan Dempsey’s centering pass to make it 1-0.McLeod’s goal seemed to serve as a wake-up call to the Tanners, who put sustained pressure on Marblehead for the first time.Several times, Cohen made picture-perfect passes to teammates, but Aaron Reny flashed his catching glove or stuck out a pad to make a spectacular save.”(Reny) was spectacular,” Leonard said. “He had a quick glove.”After making three of those stellar stops on a Peabody power play midway through the period, it looked like Reny might stonewall the Tanners forever.But Cohen kept a play alive in the Marblehead end, feeding a pass to Rodgers. He then hit Bucci for a backhand chance through traffic that found its way past Reny to tie the game at 8:27.The game stayed 1-1 into the third, when the Tanners finally showed their explosive offense.It was Peabody’s second line that got things going as Pereira fed Rodgers for a shot that beat Reny inside the left post at 1:58.Just 47 seconds later, Eric Muise’s drive from the left point was stopped by Reny. But Rodgers fought off a defenseman and one-handed the loose puck in the crease across the goal line.The Headers fought back and cut the lead to 3-2 at 5:26 when Austin Coen scored off a faceoff, assisted by Justin Levine. But that momentum lasted all of 1:31 as Rodgers completed his hat trick, assisted by Bucci, to put the Tanners back ahead by two.”That was the key point of the game,” Leonard said. “They had some momentum there and then we were able to come back and stop it.”Cohen completed the Tanners’ third-period assault with 31 seconds to go when he intercepted a pass at the Marblehead line and held off a defender to shovel the puck into an open net.McLeod’s second goal of the game with 19 ticks remaining closed out the scoring.”It seems like, since I’ve been the coach here, that when we score one, we then score four,” Leonard said. “It’s like that when we get one, they come in bunches.”