MIAA Girls Hockey: St. Mary’s, Lynn/Winthrop/Saugus headline local entries

St. Mary’s girls hockey coach Frank Pagliuca says it’ll be nice this year to go into the state tournament and have an opportunity to win a state championship just like the other 26 teams in Division 1 vying to win a title.It hasn’t always been like that. The Spartans saw their run of three straight titles and 100 games without a loss snapped last March by Hingham. This year, they’re seeded third in the division, behind Acton-Boxborough and Westford Academy.”I’d say there are about six or seven teams with a legitimate shot of winning a state title,” said Pagliuca. “That makes it exciting. But it also makes you realize that if you don’t come in with your A-game, you’re going to go home early.”St. Mary’s begins its quest to reclaim the state title Saturday at home (TBA) against either Watertown or Wakefield.”They’re both Middlesex League teams, and that’s one of the best public school hockey league teams in the state,” said Pagliuca, who teaches at another Middlesex school (Lexington). “So we know that whoever we play, we’ll be in for a fight.”After a 2-2 start, the Spartans got it together and finished at 18-3-1.”What’s really been nice about this team,” he said, “is that it’s improved as we’ve gone along. The girls have learned to trust one another, and they know what their roles on the ice are.”While the third-seeded Spartans drew the preliminary round bye, the Lynn/Winthrop/Saugus combined team coached by Anthony Martucci will be in action practically right away.The eighth-seeded Bulldogs (13-4-1) are at Larsen Rink in Winthrop on Wednesday (6:10) against the Medway/Ashland combined team.”I know,” said Martucci, “that we played a common opponent in Auburn, and we beat them 8-1. Other than that, I don’t know much.”The high-water mark of the regular season had to be the 3-1 win earlier this month over St. Mary’s in which seventh-grade goalie Brittany McPherson played a stellar game. But things have been a little tougher since then.”We fizzled a bit,” Martucci said. “We were off a little.”This could be because one of the team’s best players, Kara Donati, missed six games with a concussion.”She brings a lot of energy to our team,” Martucci said, “and we feed off it.”Donati will be back in action Wednesday.”It was tough not having her,” he said.Last year, the Bulldogs made the state semifinal before bowing out to eventual champion Hingham in a heartbreaking overtime loss. Gone from that team is Katie Burt, the goalie who was so instrumental in keeping the Bulldogs in that game. Two seventh-graders have split duties this year, McPherson, from Lynn, being one and Winthrop’s Gretchen Howard the other.”Gretchen played a lot early, then came down with pneumonia, and Brittany took over,” Martucci said. “It’s up in the air, really, at the moment. It’s been a real good competition between the two.”Also taking part in the Division 1 tournament are 18th-seeded Marblehead (Tuesday, 4 p.m., at Weymouth) and No. 21 Beverly/Danvers (Wednesday, 7:15 at Lexington).Steve Krause can be reached at [email protected].