Lapses, ill luck doom St. Mary’s boys

NORTH ANDOVER – For 57 minutes of regulation and overtime on Sunday at Merrimack College’s Lawler Arena, the St. Mary’s hockey team had dominated Central Catholic. Problem was, the Spartans had made several uncharacteristic mistakes not seen during their 21-game unbeaten streak.It was those mistakes, and a boatload of goal posts, that helped the Raiders stun the No. 2 seed, 6-5, in a shootout.”We didn’t come out strong and having 11 days off before this game didn’t help,” St. Mary’s coach Mark Lee said. “And we had too many turnovers.”Two of those turnovers came at extremely inopportune times as the Raiders scored goals in the first two minutes of both the first and second periods. In all, they scored five times on 22 shots as the Spartans decidedly carried the play, outshooting CC by double digits in the game.Fortunately for Central, senior goalie Kyle Williams was on his game despite being riddled with five goals in regulation.Twice in overtime, the Spartans had the game-winning goal on their sticks, but Williams was able to make the critical save.”We knew coming in that (Williams) was one of the best goalies in the state,” Lee said. “But our guy (Bailey MacBurnie) also did a great job. It came down to tremendous goaltending.”The shootout would be a spotlight for Williams as well as he made a pad save on Cam O’Neill and then got a little help from the posts as both Jarrod Fitzpatrick and Nikko Markham clanged the iron. His stick save on Connor Parent won it after Steve Merrick had beaten MacBurnie in the fourth round.”I don’t know how many posts we hit,” Lee said. “I thought we carried the play in the overtime but we didn’t have any luck.”The Spartans return to the ice on Wednesday (5:30) against Springfield Cathedral needing a win to keep their hopes of advancing to the crossover round alive.”That’s the good thing. It isn’t a one and done situation. We have to go back and learn from the mistakes we made,” Lee said. “But the kids responded well in the third period down two goals and hopefully we can build on that.”