Revere icemen victorious in tournament

NEWBURYPORT – For the Revere hockey team, Thursday’s Fournier Division final of the 14th annual Newburyport Bank Ice Hockey Classic was a chance to complete the best season point wise the program has ever had and to ensure the No. 3 seed in the upcoming Division 2 North tournament.Job done on both accounts.Chris Mastropietro’s goal with the Patriots down two men late in the third period was the difference as Revere completed a 15-2-3 regular season with a 3-2 win over Haverhill at Graf Rink.The 33 points accumulated by Revere is one better than in 2007 when the team was the No. 1 seed in the tournament but lost in the first round.”We’ve just gotten better as the year has gone on,” Revere coach Jim Palumbo said. “We had our three all-stars (Mastropietro, Jay Sasso, Nick DiMare) coming in and they did what we expected. It’s the rest of the guys that have made this team ? They’ve gotten better and better.”Things certainly didn’t come easy for Revere on Thursday as it had to survive a 1-for-7 effort on the power play and two 5-on-3 disadvantages in the third period. But all-tournament goaltender DiMare and tourney MVP Mastropietro helped get Revere over the hump.”We just got dumb at the end there’s no other way to put it,” Palumbo said. “But we survived it.”After a scoreless first period, the scorekeepers were kept busy in the second as the teams combined to take 14 penalties in a 12-minute span. Yet through all that the Patriots managed to jump out to a 2-0 lead.Jay Sasso, returning after missing a game with a knee injury against Peabody, picked up a loose puck in the Haverhill zone and scored his 20th goal of the season at 1:42 to make it 1-0.Just over a minute later, Sasso did the passing as he found Sean Dean at the Haverhill line for a one-handed shovel that deflected off the glove of Frank Devitto, making it 2-0 Revere.Then began the chippiness as the Patriots failed to convert on five power play chances over the next nine minutes to keep the Hillies very much in the game.Early in the third, Mastropietro had a chance to deliver a knockout blow for Revere but his breakaway bid rang off the right post.It was still 2-0 midway through the third when Anthony Noel was given a 4:00 major for high sticking at 7:40. It became a 5-on-3 advantage for the Hillies 1:12 later when Mastropietro was called for hooking.Haverhill jumped on the chance as Kyle Burke picked up a Brad McGovern rebound and beat DiMare 5-hole at 9:48 to cut the lead to 2-1. And with Noel still serving the major, Haverhill remained on the power play.And once again Revere would be two men down when DiMare was called for tripping at 10:38. But leave it to the two-time NEC North MVP to get Revere out of harms way.Mastropietro took a loose puck at the Revere blue line and took off on a breakaway that he finished with a nifty backhander past Devitto to make it 3-1 with 4:14 to go.That goal proved to be huge as Haverhill’s Jeff Roberts scored on another power play with 1:14 left to cut the lead back to a goal. But Revere hung on to get the win.”As coaches, I think we’ve gotten as much as we possibly could from these kids,” Palumbo said. “And they’ve performed well.”