St. Mary’s boys hockey falls to Central Catholic; D1 North tourney next

NORTH BILLERICA – It was a third period that the St. Mary’s hockey team would probably dearly love to have back this morning.For two periods at the Chelmsford Forum on Monday, the Spartans had controlled the play against Central Catholic with a spot in the Super Eight on the line. Then, the Raiders took their game up a notch in the third and broke a 1-1 tie with two goals in the final 2:19 of regulation to take a 3-1 win and earn the No. 8 seed in the Super Eight and a date with Malden Catholic on Saturday.The Spartans’ season, however, isn’t over. St. Mary’s will now settle in as the No. 1 seed in the Division 1 North tournament and will play either Andover or Burlington on Saturday (TBA) in the quarterfinals.”We lost a good opportunity (Monday),” St. Mary’s coach Mark Lee said. “You can’t win at this level when you only play two periods. But give credit to Central, they came out and wanted it more than us in the third period.”The Spartans (14-6-3) were outshot 24-16 in the game but still had things in control for the most part despite struggling through much of the final 15 minutes. Goaltender Donald Hesse’s brilliant play, including two stellar stops on Raider snipers Tommy Evangelista and Nick Leonard midway through, had everyone in the building thinking overtime was on the way.St. Mary’s would fail to convert on a power play chance with 4:19 left when Kevin Poulin was called for hooking. Less than a minute after the man advantage expired, the Raiders took the lead for the first time as Lloyd Hayes scored on a second whack at a rebound with 2:19 to go.”For some reason in the third period, we just didn’t have it,” Lee said. “We played two really good periods before that.”Central’s forecheck would not let the Spartans get Hesse off the ice for an extra attacker until there were 30 seconds left. But the last charge was all for naught as Ryan Daigle scored an empty net goal with three ticks left.”They have kids that can put the puck in the net,” Lee said. “They make you pay for any mistakes.”Both teams came out of the gates fast as the first period saw very few whistles. The Spartans dominated the territorial play and went to the first intermission with a 1-0 lead thanks to Corey Bartlett’s bomb from the right point that got by a screened Kyle Williams.St. Mary’s missed out on a chance to get a stranglehold on the game early in the second when it couldn’t convert on a power play. The Raiders then began to find their legs and would strike on a power play of their own midway through as Mike Kelleher tapped in a pass from Evangelista at the left post to tie things at 8:58.