St. Mary’s boys hockey comes up short in Division 1 North final

NORTH BILLERICA – For the second consecutive season, the St. Mary’s hockey team walked out of the Chelmsford Forum after the Division 1 North finals the victim of a red-hot goaltending performance.The Spartans dominated in nearly every facet of the game Saturday against Wakefield but Warrior netminder Joe Cerulo was almost otherworldly as he stopped 37 shots, including a point-blank chance by Julian Yourawski with 10 seconds left, to give the Cinderella Warriors a 4-3 win.”We had a lot of opportunities to put the puck in the net and (Cerulo) made some great saves,” St. Mary’s coach Mark Lee said. “And it seemed like every little mistake that we made they took advantage of.”The seventh seeded Warriors (13-6-4) were led by an unlikely hat trick from Kyle Leone, who had three goals for the season coming into the game, including the game winner at :38 of the third period.”I am so proud of these kids,” Wakefield coach Derek Edgerly said. “Are we the best team in this tournament? Probably not. But everyone has given it 100 percent and we’ve worked harder than everyone else. I will take that every day.”There wasn’t a seat to be had inside the Forum on Saturday as both teams brought raucous cheering sections and it was the Warrior faithful who had lots to be giddy about early as Brett Buckley scored at 3:12 of the first and Leone followed 1:09 later with a shorthanded goal to give his team a quick 2-0 lead.”I was just thanking God that we got a goal,” joked Edgerly. “That was an absolute dream start for us. I had to do a double take to make sure it was real.”The Spartans, though, controlled the play for much of the first period and cut into Wakefield’s lead at 11:50 when Nikko Markham sent Connor Parent and Bucky Surette in for a 2-on-1 chance. Surette’s initial shot was stopped but he followed up for his 13th goal of the year.That goal seemed to be the catalyst for the Spartans, who followed with one of their most dominant periods of the season. St. Mary’s would uncork a 20-shot barrage against Cerulo over those 15 minutes.Surette got his team even at the two-minute mark when his shot broke off Cerulo and trickled across the goal line.Leone returned onto the scene late in the period as he put the Warriors back in front when he jammed home a John Sartell rebound at 11:27 to make it 3-2.St. Mary’s would fight back again late in the second as Yourawski was able to stuff a Corey Bartlett rebound inside the left post to tie it at 3-3 after two.”We had a lot of goal scoring shots there,” Lee said. “(Cerulo) just made some amazing stops. But I thought we had the momentum there after the second.”The Warriors would catch a break to get the go-ahead goal at the start of the third when Pat McCarthy’s shot was blocked but no one in a white jersey could find the puck. Leone, though, did and he beat Donald Hesse from point blank range.From there on, it became the Cerulo show between the pipes.His stop on Surette with 1:59 left would be prove to be huge at the time. It became even more important in the final 39.2 seconds when the Warriors iced the puck four times with the St. Mary’s net empty.Cerulo saved his best for last, though, as he stonewalled the Spartans’ top line when it mattered most.”When we kept icing the puck I was thinking ‘I don’t want to see overtime because they’re probably going to win it,'” Edgerly said. “We found a way to stay in the game and sometimes good things happen when you do that.”