Hockey: Strong second period carries Marblehead over Beverly

At this point last season, the Marblehead hockey team was fighting for its postseason life. But this season is turning out to be a different story.On Thursday at Rockett Arena in Salem, the Headers broke a scoreless tie with a pair of second period goals and then had to hang on as Beverly made things interesting with a two late third period goals in a 3-2 Marblehead win.”We probably played one of our best periods of the year in the second,” Marblehead coach Bob Jackson said.It took nearly two full periods for either team to make a mark on the scoreboard before Anders Gunderson broke the ice at 12:13 of the second, assisted by Ben Koopman and Chris McLeod.McLeod then scored with 17 seconds left in the second, assisted by Alex Whitmore and Ryan Dempsey, to make it 2-0 Marblehead. Austin Coen tacked on an early third period goal, set up by Jake Kulevich, to increase the gap to 3-0.Beverly (4-9-0, 2-8-0 NEC North) made things interesting late as Ty Albano and Jack Liacos scored 18 seconds apart to cut the lead to 3-2 but the Headers (8-5-1, 5-5-0 NEC South) hung on.St. John’s 1, Arl. Cath. 1At the Arlington Sports Center in Arlington, the Eagles (4-4-4) took the lead in the third period thanks to Derek Palm’s goal at 3:06 but the Cougars tied the game with 6:30 to go and then rang two shots off the post in the final two minutes.”I know that we can play much better,” Eagles coach Kris Hanson said. “We just couldn’t get going.”David LeTarte made 14 saves in goal for the Prep, who is at Xaverian on Saturday (6:10).Salem 6, Danvers 2At Rockett Arena in Salem, the Witches (2-9-1, 1-8-1 NEC South) shockingly put an end to the Falcons (2-11-0, 2-8-0 NEC North) run of 21 years straight in the postseason via a convincing victory.The Witches blew the game open with four second period goals. Zach Holt led the Salem offense with two goals while Tyler Daniels, Zach Gaucher, Justin Engdahl and Mike Doherty all had single goals.Kyle Larson had both Falcon goals, with assists going to Chris Kontos, Tim Wilkinson and Chris Milne.GIRLS HOCKEYFranklin 6, Beverly 4At Veterans Memorial Rink in Franklin, the Panthers (6-5-1) had no answer for Franklin’s Rachel Porter, who scored four times and assisted on a fifth goal in the win.Beverly led 3-2 entering the third period before the hosts exploded for three unanswered goals. Claire Leathersich had two goals and an assist for Beverly and Courtney McTague added a goal and an assist.Rebecca Powers had the other Beverly goal with Brittany Russo dishing out a pair of assists.