St. Mary’s, Lynn-Winthrop among area girls teams in hockey tourney

For the fourth straight season, the St. Mary’s girls hockey team will head into the postseason in the role of favorites as the Spartans earned the No. 1 seed in the Division 1 championship after finishing with a 19-0-3 record in the regular season.The three-time defending state champs have been pushed this season in several games but turned up the wick down the stretch against some of the top competition in their bracket.Led by goaltender Sarah Foss, the Spartans surrendered only 14 goals in 22 games this season while Sabrina Iannetti and Allison Butler led the offense to 114 goals during the year.The Spartans’ road to the title this season will not be easy as they will open up on March 5 at home against the winner of the Beverly/Shrewsbury game. A win there, which would be their 100th game without a loss, would result in a possible third meeting this season with Hingham.The Harborwomen have given the Spartans fits twice this season in 1-0 and 4-2 St. Mary’s wins thanks to goaltender Beth Findlay. Another intriguing possibility is a semifinal meeting with No. 4 seed Lynn-Winthrop, who the Spartans beat 5-0 during the regular season.Speaking of the Bulldogs, coach Anthony Martucci’s team turned into one of the pleasant surprises of the year as they claimed the GEMIHL title and finished with a 15-3-1 mark during the regular season. They will open their tournament on home ice in Winthrop against either Braintree or Marblehead-Swampscott on the 5th.Marblehead-Swampscott went 11-7-2 and earned the No. 20 seed. The squad plays Braintree Tuesday (5) in the preliminaries at Randolph.