Third time is the charm for Marblehead

CAMBRIDGE – After coming heartbreakingly close to reaching TD Garden in two of the past three seasons, the Marblehead hockey team finally took that giant step on Tuesday at Harvard’s Bright Hockey Center ? and with it a trip back to Boston for the first time since 1985.In a game where they thoroughly dominated Pembroke for 30 minutes only to see the South sectional champs fight back to make things interesting, the Headers got the game-winning goal from Ryan Dempsey with 4:29 left and held on for a 3-2 win over the Titans.Click here for a photo gallery.Marblehead will play Westfield on Sunday (11:15) in its first state final since that 1985 trip to the D1 title game.”We always find a way to make it hard,” joked Marblehead coach Bob Jackson. “We watched (Pembroke) the other night and we knew they were going to be a tough team. And they didn’t quit ? but our experience I think was the difference (Tuesday).”Fittingly, it was one of the 10 seniors on the Marblehead roster who got the Headers over the hump on Tuesday.Pembroke had been dominated to the tune of a 34-10 shots on goal advantage for the Headers over the first two periods but the Titans had renewed vigor in the third and shaved the lead to a goal on Cavan Fitzgerald’s marker with 9:04 to go.Holding all the momentum, Pembroke then had a power play that saw Tony Cuzner (19 saves) make a pair of critical stops. Seconds after the power play ended, Austin Haley’s bid was stopped but Dempsey slammed home the rebound past Kyle Jacobs to restore the two goal cushion.”That was just a fantastic goal by Ryan and Tony made some huge saves at the end of the second period and he did a great job in the third,” Jackson said.Dempsey’s goal proved to be rather immense 95 seconds later when Chris Wakefield scored on a rebound to bring Pembroke back within a goal.The Titans threw everything they could at Cuzner over the final minutes, pulling Jacobs for an extra attacker with 1:18 left. Cuzner came up with one more critical save as he stopped Paul Tower’s blast from the left circle with 11 ticks remaining to finally seal the Headers’ return to Beantown.”Everyone in that locker room is dead so they left it all on the ice,” Jackson said. “We knew what it felt like after the last two times we were here and we talked about that between the second and third periods.”Marblehead held a 17-6 shots advantage after one and got the only goal of the period at 12:24 when Haley knocked in a rebound, assisted by Chris McLeod and Ben Koopman.The Headers were even more dominant in the second period with a 17-4 shots on goal advantage but Jacobs continued to frustrate them to no end. Hunter Graves finally extended the lead to 2-0 at 7:34 when he converted off an Alex Whitmore rebound in the slot area.