LYNN — The Revere boys hockey team bounced back to steal a point from the Lynn Jets after trailing by two goals in a 3-3 tie at William P. Connery Rink Saturday night.
Junior goaltender JT Bowdridge rose to the occasion for the Patriots with 41 saves. Matt Cravotta, Joe Papsadora and Zach Rufo each added a goal.
“JT played against Lynn last time (a 6-3 loss in Revere) but then shortly after that game we switched starters,” Revere coach Joe Ciccarello said. “We had been going with (Tristian Goroshko) at goaltender but he missed the bus tonight so I benched him. I started JT and he stepped up. He found out right before the game that he was starting. He got himself together and played great.
“Goaltending hasn’t been our problem,” Ciccarello added. “It’s been goal scoring and taking stupid penalties. Tonight we only got one penalty and that’s the difference. When we don’t take stupid penalties we can play five-on-five with a lot of teams.”
The Jets qualified for the state tournament early this week in a 5-1 win over Hamilton-Wenham but coach Mike Roberts still knows points are at a premium this late in the season for seeding.
“This is not how we wanted to look after looking like we did against Hamilton-Wenham Wednesday,” Roberts said. “As far as I’m concerned it’s a big let down. It’s a point that we should have had. It would be a shame to come down and lose a bye in the state tournament if we’re one point shy or something.
“Revere did a great job tonight,” Roberts added. “Their goaltender was excellent. We had 18 shots in the first period. He was the deciding factor in the game. They out muscled us. They wanted today’s game more than we did and it shows.”
Paul Papageorgiou scored two goals for the Jets while John DiFilippo added one.
Revere got on the board first with a quick goal in the first period. Papsadora crashed the net to finish a rebound out front and put the Patriots ahead 1-0 less than two minutes into the game.
Revere held onto the lead for a majority of the first period behind 12 straight saves by JT Bowdridge before Lynn broke through. With just under a minute to play Papageorgiou slipped a shot by Bowdridge to tie the game. Lynn continued to keep the pressure on for the rest of the period and Papageorgiou added another goal with two seconds remaining in the period to put Lynn ahead 2-1.
After killing off a Revere power play the Jets extended their lead in the second period. This time John DiFilippo slipped by a Patriots defenseman and made a nice move to his forehand to beat Bowdridge and put Lynn ahead 3-1.
A few late penalties gave the Patriots a chance to get back in the game. Zach Rufo crashed the net with 3:02 left in the second for a power play goal to cut the Lynn lead to 3-2.
“We took a lot of penalties tonight,” Roberts said. “We were in the penalty box almost the entire second period. We just couldn’t get anything going. The penalties jammed us up and we weren’t able to run all three lines. We were missing Troy Petkevitch on defense today with a concussion so we’re a little out of whack today.
The Patriots tied things up early in the third period. Cravotta ripped a far wrist shot after entering the Jets’ zone that found the back of the net to tie the game at 3-3.
Two more Lynn penalties prevented the Jets from doing much on offense and Revere couldn’t find a game winner to steal a win.
The Jets move to to 9-3-3 with the tie and will look to bounce back on the road Wednesday (5) against Latin Academy.
“The lesson to take away is if you don’t play your best, you’re going home,” Roberts said. “We are treating every game as if it’s a playoff game and unfortunately if that was the case we would be going to overtime right now with a bad bounce or a bad call away from ending our season. The lesson that has to be learned here is you can’t come out flat and play down to teams.”The Patriots (2-11-3) will have a week off before traveling to Winthrop Saturday (1:30).
