Prep ousts Reading in shootout

SALEM – All season long, the St. John’s Prep hockey team has been able to bounce back from the toughest of situations. On Wednesday at Rockett Arena, the Eagles had to call upon that determination again.After seeing defending Super 8 champion Reading score with 4:14 left in regulation, the Prep came back to tie on Justin DiRienzo’s goal with 2:07 left on the clock. The Prep then completed the upset as Colin Blackwell and DiRienzo scored in a shootout to give the No. 12 seed a 2-1 win and a date with No. 4 Andover on Saturday (TBA) in the Division 1 North quarterfinals.”We’ve been a resilient team all year,” Prep coach Kristian Hanson said. “People think we’re down and not going to be able to get up and we find a way to fight back.”The Eagles (8-6-7) didn’t stay on the canvas for long as Blackwell took a Peter Cahill pass in the right wing corner and fed a strike in front to DiRienzo for a one-timer past highly touted Reading netminder Jeff Wyer to tie the game.”Their goaltender was playing real well and was hot,” Blackwell said. “I saw a bunch of people in front and I guess we got a lucky bounce and it went in.”That goal would push the teams into overtime, where caution was thrown away and the teams began racing up and down the ice for chances.The Rockets had the better of the play early in the eight-minute extra session, but freshman goalie David LeTarte, a Salem native, was up to the task.”Their goalie was unbelievable but I didn’t want this to be our last game of the season,” LeTarte said.Wyer also proved worthy of the admiration as he stuffed Kyle Linehan and Blackwell late in overtime to keep the game tied and force the shootout.The Prep shot first in the five-man shootout and Hanson elected to put his best scorer out first. And Blackwell responded, beating Wyer with a nifty shot fake to his left.”I knew one thing, I wanted Colin out there first to get us kick-started,” Hanson said.After a Reading miss on its first attempt, DiRienzo stepped up and roofed a shot over Wyer’s shoulder to give the Eagles a 2-0 lead in the shootout. From there, LeTarte came through.He stopped Ryan Arsenault and Mac Cook before Tom Crowley rifled a shot over the net on the Rockets’ fourth-round attempt, sending the Prep on to Saturday.”David really made some big stops for us (Wednesday),” Hanson said.