Winthrop, Peabody icemen score thrilling victories in tourney action

SALEM – All season long, the Peabody hockey team has prided itself on playing all 45 minutes. On Friday at Rockett Arena, the Tanners once again proved that credo true.Trailing 3-1 to Masconomet entering the third period of the team’s Division 2 North semifinal at Rockett Arena, the Tanners responded to the challenge.Matt Rodgers scored twice and Pete Sucharewicz added a third goal as the Tanners advanced to the North semis with a dramatic 4-3 win over the Chieftains.Peabody (17-3-2) will now have a chance to make the first North final in program history as it will face NEC North rival Winthrop on Monday (6) at the Chelmsford Forum.The Vikings put on a Houdini-esque escape of their own in the first game of the night as Joe Casey scored with 36.1 seconds left in regulation for a 2-1 win over Boston Latin.”Round three with Winthrop, wow,” Peabody coach Mark Leonard said. “That should be an unbelievable game ? We’ve been a third period team all year long and we stuck to our gameplan.”How good a third period club have the Tanners been? Including their three goals on Friday, Peabody has now outscored the opposition 35-12 this season.”We came in sky high after the second period and simply couldn’t finish the game,” Masco coach Bill Blackwell said.Peabody got the comeback started right off the bat in the third as Ryan Noftle hustled to keep the puck in the Masco zone on a power play. He cut to the middle and fired a shot that was stopped by Jake Warren, but Rodgers was able to bat the rebound out of the air for his 23rd goal of the year and ignite the partisans from Peabody.”That was a great hustle play by Ryan to just keep that puck in,” Leonard said.On the next shift, the biggest Tanner on the roster sent the building into a frenzy.Pete Sucharewicz took a Connor Purcell pass and fired a shot that was stopped. But he followed the puck to the net and slid the rebound home to tie the game at 3-3.”That second line was just tremendous,” Leonard said. “They got the puck deep, forced a lot of turnovers and came up with a huge goal for us.”With Masco now squarely in scramble mode, the Tanners kept the peddle down and nearly blew the roof off the building four minutes later.Mike Broughton kept a hard wraparound by Masco in the zone and fired a shot towards goal. Rodgers cut in front and tipped the puck inside the left post to make it 4-3 at 5:47.Masco could never recover from there on as Peabody outshot them 12-6 in the final frame to insure the dramatic win.uIn the first game of the night, Winthrop (17-2-3) got a huge monkey off its back by advancing to the semifinals for the first time since 2005.”Boy we never make it easy on ourselves,” Winthrop coach Dale Dunbar joked after the game. “This was a big hurdle for us, finally winning a tournament game in this building.”Despite having a 26-11 shots advantage in the game, the Vikings had to sweat out the finish thanks to brilliant goaltending from Boston Latin’s Gabe Diop.Several times in the second and three times in the third, Diop took away certain goals for the VIkings with spectacular saves.”We just weren’t getting the bounces,” Dunbar said.Through all that, the Vikings still led 1-0 after two periods thanks to Brendan Loomis’ goal late in the second, assisted by Joe Scarfo.The Wolfpack turned the game around early in the third when Kevin Cotrone scored on a COnal Lynch rebound to tie the game.Winthrop then caught a break after a timeout with 40 seconds left. Loomis’ shot was blocked but Casey slid the rebound past Diop with 36.1 seconds remaining.