Austin Prep fends off spirited St. Mary’s icemen

STONEHAM – Sometimes, you play horrible and win ? and sometimes you play very well and you lose.What happened to St. Mary’s Monday afternoon at the Stoneham Rink was the latter. The Spartans, 4-7-1, matched the 7-1-2 Cougars stride for stride ? for three periods ? and lost 1-0.”That’s been the story with us all year,” said coach Mark Lee. “We have trouble scoring. I have no problem with the effort. The effort’s there. We just can’t score.”But,” he said, “this is one of those games where you can’t wait to get to the rink tomorrow.”The Cougars were coming off a 5-1 loss to St. John’s Prep Saturday and Lee knew he was going to get their best.”And we did,” he said. “They played real well too. That was a good hockey game.”Austin Prep’s Lou Finocchiaro backed Lee up.”We played a very good game,” he said. “It was a one-goal win, and we finished it out, and you have to be happy with that.”I thought (St. Mary’s) played great,” Finocchiaro said. “They skated well and were disciplined.”This was a story of goaltenders. Austin Prep’s Elijah Harris battled on one end while St. Mary’s Nick Holt was almost as impenetrable on the other.Only once – at the 2:30 mark of the second period – was anyone able to put the puck in the net. And you certainly couldn’t blame Holt for what happened.Holt made the initial save on an Austin Prep shot, but the puck ended up in the middle of the usual scrum of players trying to control the rebound. Austin Prep’s George Sennott – a freshman – got his stick on it and pushed it past a very well-screened goalie.But there were still almost two periods to go. And after a first period that could politely be called a “feeling out process,” the second period – despite the Austin Prep goal – really belonged to the Spartans. They outshot the Cougars, 14-9, held a territorial edge, and only some acrobatics by Harris kept St. Mary’s off the scoreboard. And some spry netminding by Holt at the end of the second period kept it a one-goal game. Austin Prep peppered him with no less than six shots in the last minute of play, and he stood up to them all.”Their guy certainly played great,” Finocchiaro said. “But so did our guy.”The third period was tilted more Austin Prep’s way, as the Cougars turned the table and outshot the Spartans. And Harris was equal to the task of stoning St. Mary’s whenever the Spartans got close.And the Spartans did come close a number of times.”We had some bad luck,” said Lee, “but again, the puck hasn’t bounced our way very much. We’re young, and we’re learning. But a lot of our kids grew up a little today. That was a great effort. I’m proud of all of them.”As for Finocchiaro, he was happy his team was able to finish.”We talk about that a lot,” said Finocchiaro, who coached Saugus to a state title in 1999. “We had a lead going into the third period, and we finished. That’s a good day.”Steve Krause can be reached at [email protected].