The St. Mary’s girls hockey team stands on the doorstep of achieving something monumental, but even though defenseman Alex Smith uses the word, she’s not prepared to dwell on it yet.”I’d prefer to wait,” says Smith, a senior from Winthrop, who is the No. 1 witness for the defense for this year’s Spartans. The rangy, smooth-skating Smith is too absorbed in the “now” to contemplate what it all means.”I’m really superstitious about everything,” she says. “I don’t like to even talk about it.””It,” of course, is the possibility of a second straight Division 1 state championship for the Spartans, which they’ll win if they beat Woburn Saturday (5 p.m.) at the Boston Garden.When the season began, the Spartans had the arduous task of answering the age-old question, “How do you duplicate perfection?” Last year’s championship team was 25-0, had the all-time leading scorer in the state (boys and girls) in Abby Gauthier, and rolled through the tournament like the Visigoths on a rampage.All the Spartans did this year was finish the season at 22-0, taking on all challenges in the process. The scores may not have been as impressive in some cases, but the results were.When you lose the point production the Spartans lost to graduation, you have to find the strengths within the new nucleus and play to them. This year, the Spartans relied much more on depth and defense than sheer firepower. And Smith was the anchor behind much of it.”Last year, we had Abby and Christen (Hart), and we had that one line,” says Smith. “If we were down a goal, or were in trouble, we’d send them out there and they’d do their job ? they’d get us the goal. This year, we don’t have that, necessarily.”But what they have, Smith says, is something just as good.”We have to work hard,” she says. “And we have to organize ourselves as a team. We don’t necessarily have the power line like last year, but we have more than one very good line, and we have depth. Maybe we have to work harder for our goals sometimes, but that’s not a bad thing.”All sports are basically the same in one respect: Very often, doing the unseen, and unromantic, chores spell the difference between winning and losing. In golf, you drive for show, and putt for dough. And in hockey, the forwards may score all the goals, but they wouldn’t be in a position to do so if the defense didn’t do its job.”It all starts with the defense,” says coach Frank Pagliuca. “It all comes down to how fast you can transition from defense to offense.”And in Smith, the Spartans have one of the best. For one thing, it’s not really wise for opponents to try to carry the puck into the Spartan end by themselves. Smith – or one of the others – will invariably steer them off to the side and prevent them from getting good shots on goalie Kelsey Magrane.”We work hard on that in practice ? angling, moving players off to one side or the other,” Pagliuca says.Often, what results is a stolen puck, a quick clear-out, and an excellent offensive opportunity for St. Mary’s.”We work on a lot of breakouts in practice,” Smith said. “We’re always told to get the puck out as fast as possible. We only use icing as a last resort, if someone’s really tired.”One of the reasons Smith is so adept at doing these little things ? and then being around to help with the big things (like setting up goals) ? is her height, range and graceful skating ability.”I don’t see myself as fast,” she said. “Maybe it’s that I’m calm ? and that I can slow the play down and get everyone to regroup.”Smith, a co-captain, understands that it’s a natural tendency for folks to root against a team that’s won 50 straight games going into Saturday.”There’s always that element,” she says. “People are sick of seeing us win.”But,” she says, “we work hard for what we’ve achieved, and we’re one of the least cocky teams I know of. We don’t walk into the rink like we own the place, and take nothing for granted.”She says the team learned the hard way – losing a heartbreaker of a state semifinal