Saugus drops Kasabuski D2 opener; Lynnfield wins

SAUGUS – The Division 2 semifinals of the Kasabuski Christmas Classic on Tuesday saw plenty of excitement and a sectional champion and a perennial North Shore power move on to the finals.In the opener, defending Division 1 North champ Wakefield broke a 1-1 tie with two late goals in the third to take a 3-1 win over Saugus. In the other semifinal, Lynnfield overcame an early 1-0 deficit with four unanswered goals en route to a 5-3 win over Danvers.The Warriors and Sachems combined to take 15 penalties and killed much of the flow of the game. Despite that, the teams would play to a 1-1 tie in the first period.Wakefield opened the scoring at 4:59 when Kevin Doherty got a partial breakaway and beat Nick Hegarty 5-hole to give the Warriors a 1-0 lead.Just over five minutes later, Drew Oxley made a picture perfect pass to Kurt Rodrigues on the left wing for a shot that went between the pads of Joe Cerulo to tie the game after a period.”Saugus is a scrappy team and I like how they play,” Wakefield coach Derek Edgerly said. “It was sloppy though at times out there.”The sloppiness became evident in the second period as the teams spent the bulk of the period killing off penalties as they combined for seven power play chances but no goals.Saugus had a chance to take the lead early in the third, but couldn’t convert on its fifth power play of the game. Wakefield would miss out on a man advantage chance of its own with 4:14 left but the Sachems got caught at the end of a shift with 1:35 left and the Warriors made them pay.Joe McCarthy’s perfect feed in front to Ryan Andrews beat Hegarty clean for a 2-1 lead. Kyle Leone tacked on an empty net goal with one second remaining to close the scoring.”That was our best effort of the year,” Saugus coach Jeff Natalucci said. “We were able to respond after being down 1-0 and I thought we carried the play after that.”Game two saw Danvers take an early 1-0 lead on A.J Couto’s goal at 5:20 before the Pioneers responded with tallies from Jeremy Young and John Festa to take a 2-1 lead after one.”We got down 1-0 but were able to keep to our game plan,” Lynnfield coach Vin Mirasolo said.The Pioneers controlled much of the second period but couldn’t find the net until the final five minutes when they were able to strike twice in a little under two minutes. Kris Houda made it 3-1 at 9:22 and Festa scored for a 4-1 lead, assisted by Greg Meiniger and Craig Anderson.The Falcons made it interesting on the first shift of the third when Couto scored at the seven-second mark to cut the lead to two but Alex Ganter scored on a rebound a little over two minutes later to put the game away.