Hockey: Jets fall to Northeast

Lynn Jets coach Joe Conlon couldn?t fault the effort of his team against Northeast Regional on Tuesday night at Connery Rink in the finals of his program?s Christmas tournament. The problem for Lynn was that it wasn?t able to put together a lot of sustained offensive pressure in the 3-1 loss to Northeast Regional.
Northeast?s Gino Lanciani broke a 1-1 tie late in the second period before Noah Forte added an empty-net goal with 18 seconds left to give the Golden Knights the win in a game dominated by defense.
?We still aren?t creating enough offensively in terms of shooting the puck,” Conlon said. “We threw everything we had at them in the end.”
The Golden Knights, who were outshot 19-16 in the game, had the only score of the first period on Steven Czarnota?s goal at 5:26. Lynn (1-3-1) had an answer early in the second when Kyle Morrill was set up by Jon Kosmas and Brett Molea at 5:02.
It stayed tied until Lanciani scored, assisted by Forte, at 10:31 to give Northeast the lead for good. The Jets pulled netminder Jack Stafford for an extra attacker in the final moments to no avail.
?We have to get more traffic to the net,” Conlon said. “Until that happens, we are going to be trying to survive instead of pressuring (the opposition).”
In the consolation game, Everett beat Swampscott, 7-3, after jumping out to a 4-0 first period lead.
The Big Blue (1-5-0) got second period goals from Louis Olivieri and Thomas O?Keefe to cut the lead to 4-2 and missed on a breakaway that would have made it a one-goal game. Everett then pulled away in the third before Ryan Cresta scored, assisted by Emery Wollerscheid.
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Freshmen Tom Mento and Connor Purtell each scored twice to lead Danvers to a convincing 6-1 win over host Saugus in the National Division finals.
?Danvers plays at a high level and they do so for 45 minutes,” Saugus coach Jeff Natalucci said. “We had to try and keep up and we couldn?t”
The tone for the game was set right away as Purtell was set up by Ryan Buchanan in the first minute for a 1-0 lead. Senior Steve Ganley added another goal later in the period, assisted by Troy Fleming and Nick Discullo, to give the Falcons a 2-0 lead after one.
Mento struck for his first goal early in the second period to make it a three-goal lead. The Sachems (1-4) battled back to within two at the 13:22 mark when Nik Straticos was set up by Brendan Patterson.
The Falcons, however, got that back in the final seconds of the middle frame when Mento fired home a Kyle Cahill pass to make it 4-1. Curtis Cunningham and Purtell added third-period goals to complete the scoring.
In the consolation game of the National Division, Lynnfield and Wakefield battled to a 1-1 tie in a game dominated by defense.
Lynnfield coach Jon Gardner knew the Pioneers (1-2-1) would have a tall task ahead of them, considering the performance of Wakefield goalie Ben Yandell this season.
?We knew with their goalie, it was going to be tight,” Gardner said. “It was a game where both teams seemed to be waiting each other out.”
Lynnfield knew it would take fluid offense to beat the stout Warrior defense, and was able to score first, gaining early momentum. On a nice offensive play, Rob Loconte and Johnny Percoskie found Jack Ganter, who beat Yandell at 12:56 in the period to give the Pioneers a lead.
?Excellent passing on the play, it was an excellent tick-tack goal,” Gardner said of the play.
For much of the game, Wakefield attempted to score from the point, but the Lynnfield defense often sacrificed and blocked most of the chances from reaching sophomore netminder David Langone, who was starting his first game of the season.
However, in the second, on a scrambled, frantic play, Wakefield beat Langone when Zach Salamone, on assists from Nick Hill and Dom Bruno, found the net. In a sequence that saw both teams fighting furiously for control of the puck, it took a fortunate bounce for the Warriors to tie the game, 1-1, which stood as the fi