Marblehead boys hockey vanquished by Tewksbury in D2 North semis

CHELMSFORD – All too often does a postseason hockey game boil down to the stellar effort of a hot goaltender, and the Marblehead boys hockey team found that out the hard way on Monday evening at the Chelmsford Forum.The seventh-seeded Headers outshot No. 3 Tewksbury by a 22-18 margin but couldn?t recover from a two-goal deficit in their eventual 3-2 loss in the semifinals of the Division 2 North state tournament.Kyle Paquette finished with 20 saves for the Redmen, while yielding late goals in the first and final periods. In between, however, the junior netminder was big when he had to be, which wasn?t all that often.?Tewksbury is very sound defensively and it all starts with their goaltender,” explained Marblehead coach Bob Jackson. “He made a couple big saves and in the end we came up a bit short of our goal.”Trailing 3-1 with less than 1:30 remaining, the Headers pulled goaltender Harrison Young and capitalized immediately thereafter.Freshman Braden Haley fired home a one-timer from the slot off a feed from Tom Koopman at the 1:14 mark. Matt Koopman also picked up an assist on the play.In the ensuing seconds, the teams would exchange timeouts before Tewksbury applied enough pressure to keep Young in his cage and run out the clock.?I feel so badly for the seniors in our room. Nobody wants to go out with a loss but they gave us their all for the entire season,” lamented Jackson. “I?m very proud of their effort and honored to have had the chance to coach them.”The game-winning goal came 5:19 into the final frame on a defensive breakdown.Ryan Petti chipped the puck off the glass and past Marblehead at the Headers? blue line, which led to Jack Cash feeding Colin Quinn for a two-on-one tally.Through the first 30 minutes, Marblehead was arguably the better team, putting eight shots on net in each period while limiting the Redmen to 12 total.The game?s opening goal came at the 1:50 mark of the first frame when Cash buried a wrister under the crossbar after Petti?s feed from below the goal line. Quinn was credited with the secondary assist.Ever resilient, the Headers responded with a tally from sophomore Tim Kalinowski, who beat the buzzer with 1.6 remaining. Erik Powers assisted.?We kept working hard after they opened the scoring and our late goal really built some momentum,” said Jackson. “I really thought we?d come out stronger in the second period but they scored early and put us back on our heels a bit.”Tewksbury will take on No. 1 Beverly, which defeated fourth-seeded Lincoln-Sudbury 5-1, in the championship next Monday at Tsongas Arena in Lowell.