Lynn Jets, Northeast to play for Lynn Christmas Tournament title

LYNN – In the championship game of last year’s Lynn Christmas tournament at Connery Rink, the Lynn Jets lost in a heartbreaking eight-round shootout to Everett. This holiday season, the hosts will have a chance to redeem themselves after defeating Salem 5-1 in round one on Thursday night.Lynn exploded out of the gates, scoring four times in the first period. Ryan MacDonald had two of the goals while Corey Wojewlodzic and Alex Amico each tallied as well. Salem, clearly overwhelmed, could only muster up two scoring chances in the period, neither of which hit their mark.”This is just our third game of the season,” explained Jets head coach Joe Conlon. “We’ve been focusing on starting out games stronger and I thought we were able to accomplish that tonight.”The momentum changed a bit to start the second, but it would be Lynn who struck first in the period. Mark Brazell scored off a beautiful pass from MacDonald behind the net, roofing the puck over goalie Brett Herring’s left shoulder.Salem (1-2-2) fired right back, however, as Sam Petri was able to solve Jets goalie Mike Gately with a sweet move to the backhand. That would be all the offense the Witches could muster up, however, as Gately stood tough all night long.”This would have been a very different game if Mike didn’t turn in a terrific final two periods tonight,” explained Conlon. “Salem plays hard and really picked things up in the second period. A lot of our mistakes was just them playing well.”Lynn tacked on a goal in the final stanza, as Brett Erelli’s seeing-eye shot from the left point found its way through traffic, and passed Herring. With the win, the Jets improve to 2-1 on the season and now will be looking to win the tournament championship that barely eluded them last season.”Before the season one of our goals was to come out and win this tournament,” said Conlon. “The kids remember last year and now they have a chance to go out tomorrow night and win this thing.”The first game of the evening saw the reigning champion Crimson Tide (1-3-1) reach a shootout once again after regulation ended in a 4-4 deadlock. This time however, they came out on the losing end as Northeast got the deciding goal from Nick Manzi in round three.The Golden Knights (1-3-1) got two goals and an assist from Jonah Hadley in regulation time while Everett’s Stephen Faia led his team offensively, with two goals and an assist of his own. Northeast goalie Rich Gerokoulis stopped all three shots in the shootout, giving his team a chance to play for the championship Friday night at 8:30 p.m.