Tewksbury ends Beverly’s stellar run

NORTH BILLERICA – The clock finally struck midnight on Tuesday for the Beverly hockey team and its youthful roster.The lowest remaining seed in the Division 2 North tournament, the Cinderella Panthers ran into a buzzsaw against No. 6 Tewksbury as Ryan Doherty’s hat trick paced the Redmen to a 6-1 win at the Chelmsford Forum.Tewksbury advances to its second North final in four years and will play No. 4 Saugus on Friday (5:10) for the North crown.”It had to end sometime,” said a smiling Beverly coach Bob Gilligan when he emerged from the Beverly locker room. “Tewksbury was a better team and they took it to us pretty good. But we’ve had a spectacular season.”The Panthers (16-6-1) were simply outclassed on Tuesday as the bigger and faster Redmen beat them to the physical punch early and then took the play to Beverly after it had made a game of things in the second period.”We have a bunch of really young kids who are playing against guys who are three and sometimes four years older than them,” Gilligan said. “But they handled themselves so well this season.”Tewksbury tested Beverly netminder Tony Walsh early and often on Tuesday, putting a 16-shot barrage on the Panther net in the opening period. The senior held the fort well until defenseman Sean Taylor went end to end and fired a shot from the left circle over Walsh’s shoulder for a 1-0 lead after the opening stanza.Beverly found its legs at the start of the second and had the better scoring chances through the first half of the period. But Doherty scored a highlight film goal, which saw him undress two Panthers before deking Walsh, to make it 2-0 Redmen.Beverly desperately needed a boost and got it at 11:07 when Mitch Hamor followed his own shot and slid the puck past Niko Cunha to cut the lead to 2-1 and give the Panther faithful a little life.The Redmen, however, would snuff that momentum out less than two minutes later. Doherty did the honors again, this time on a shorthanded tally off a 2-on-1 with Derek Petti, at 12:49 to make it 3-1 after two.”That third goal really was a killer,” Gilligan said. “We just didn’t get the puck down low quick enough and they took advantage of it.”Petti put a dagger through the hopes of the Panthers 36 seconds into the third when he beat Walsh with a quick snap shot from the high slot for a 4-1 lead. Frank Mazzei and Doherty would add goals 56 seconds apart late in the third to close out the scoring.”Our seniors have set the bar really high and these young kids have come in and played really well for us,” Gilligan said. “They were a great team to be able to coach.”