LYNN—St. Mary’s girls hockey coach Frank Pagliuca likes to schedule early season games against tough opponents to assure that his Spartans are battle-tested down the road.
Wednesday night’s game against Beverly at Connery Rink was one of those. The Panthers took advantage of a sluggish St. Mary’s start in the opening period, but five unanswered goals powered the Spartans to a 5-1 win.
“Beverly’s a tough matchup for us because they’re so physical and they’re well-coached,” Spartans coach Frank Pagliuca said. “(Coach) Brian Seabury does a good job with them and he always has them ready to play.”
Forward Aylah Cioffi, an eighth-grader, led the Spartans with a hat trick in the win. Junior defender Mady Hentosh added two goals.
Beverly’s lone goal of the night was scored by senior forward Erica Haibon with an assist from senior forward Marlee Hamor.
A slow start for St. Mary’s in the first period saw the Panthers capitalize to claim a 1-0 lead. Haibon found the back of the net six minutes into the period for the game’s first goal. Cioffi sent a pair of shots in Panthers goalie Madison Jalbert’s direction towards the end of the period; the first ricocheted off the goalpost and the second was saved by Jalbert. St. Mary’s trailed 1-0 at the end of the first period.
“They kind of threw us off in that first period and they jumped out to a quick lead,” Pagliuca said. “I thought once we settled down, we figured things out a little bit and we created more opportunities, but we were a bit too much out on the perimeter. We weren’t really attacking and going to the net, but it’s early and that’s something we have to work on.”
A revamped and improved attack on offense produced a pair of goals for the Spartans to steal the lead in the second period. More impressively, both St. Mary’s goals were scored while the Spartans were down a skater due to a penalty. First it was Hentosh who buried a slap shot into the back of net, knotting the score at 1-1 with 10:45 remaining in the period. One minute later, Cioffi cashed in a loose puck to give the Spartans the 2-1 lead. That’s how it stayed through the second period.
“I thought Jalbert played very well,” Pagliuca said. “We had some quality chances, especially in the second period. We were able to score on our penalty kill. We scored two goals short-handed, which was huge for us. Them having a power play actually opened the ice for us.”
The Spartans iced the victory with a trio of scores in the third period. Hentosh gave the Spartans a 3-1 lead when she scored her second goal of the contest with 10:42 left on the clock. Cioffi cemented her hat trick, and the Spartan’s victory, with the last two goals of the game for the 5-1 final.
“Aylah’s a special player,” Pagliuca said. “It’s nice to see her capitalize on her chances. I think we have to identify when to pinch, puck management and when to move the puck. We were about a half-second behind but Beverly did a good job packing it in.
“We came back and won the game,” Pagliuca added. “We have a lot to work on, which is important, but we’ll take the win and move on.”
The Spartans improve to 2-0 on the young season with the victory and are back on the ice on Saturday night when they visit Medway.
“Tough game for us to start,” Pagliuca said. “We had to make adjustments and we were fortunate enough to finish on some of our chances as we moved along in the game. By no means was that up to where we need to play but we did enough to win against a tough, physical and disciplined opponent.”
