BILLERICA— It wasn’t meant to be for the St. Mary’s boys hockey team in Monday’s Division 1A ‘Super 8’ play-in game against Marshfield. The No. 8 Spartans scored first, surrendered three consecutive goals to follow and saw a late push fall just short in a 5-3 loss to the No. 9 Rams at Chelmsford Forum.
“It was disappointing at the end,” St. Mary’s coach Mark Lee said. “I felt we came out very tentative in the first period. But our goaltender (Joe Purtell) kept us in, made some great stops. In the second period we took it to them. We had a lapse the last couple minutes of the period and they scored a couple goals.
“It was a shame at the end,” Lee said. “I thought we might’ve got one but they got the empty-netter. There’s a lot of positives to take but we made some mistakes that cost us probably the game.”
Brady Carpenter, Damon Maribito and Colin Reddy each scored one goal. Reddy dished two assists, while Davis Kinne, Nicholas Napolitano and Kyle Ouellette each had one assist. Purtell made 24 saves.
In a scoreless first period, it was Marshfield that won time of possession and generated more shots on net. But the Rams weren’t quite crisp enough to catch Purtell off guard in the early going. Purtell was tested in the first period but the junior held his ground in net to keep Marshfield off the board. A Marshfield penalty granted St. Mary’s a power play toward the close of the first period. St. Mary’s couldn’t make anything of the first 1:36 of the advantage and it was 0-0 at the first intermission.
“It’s no surprise that playoff hockey’s all about defense and goaltending,” Lee said. “Joe has been there for us all season long. He’s a big part of why we’ve been successful.”
With 24 seconds left on their power play at the start of the second period, the Spartans cashed in for a 1-0 lead. Maribito found the back of the net on a breakaway and put St. Mary’s on the board.
St. Mary’s controlled the new few minutes of play before things turned for the worse. Matt Mullaney tied the game and Max Burum’s power play goal gave the Rams a 2-1 lead heading into the final minute of the period. Just when it looked as though the Spartans would escape a late Rams surge with a one-goal deficit, Jonathan Jordan lit the lamp on a slapshot at the buzzer. The Spartans trailed 3-1 at the second intermission.
Not so fast, said the Spartans.
Twice they made it a one-goal game in the third period. Reddy scored on a power play just over a minute into the final frame. Marshfield’s James Kolar bumped the lead to 4-2 two minutes later. Carpenter gave St. Mary’s life on a power play goal with 9:40 to play.
“I give my team credit,” Lee said. “They came out flying in the third period. I thought we held play. We kept getting within a goal. We seemed to have a mistake here or there and a good team like Marshfield’s going to capitalize.”
Marshfield fought a tough Spartans attack in the closing stages and sealed the win with an empty netter for the 5-3 victory.
“We were working hard, getting pucks in the net,” Lee said. “We had confidence that we were going to score in the end there. We had an awful lot of close calls that could’ve went in and they didn’t. I’m just proud of the effort. It wasn’t perfect, X’s and O’s wise. Hopefully this makes us a better team entering the Division 1 tournament.”
St. Mary’s now enters the Division 1 North bracket as the No. 1 seed. The Spartans have a first-round bye and await the winner of No. 9 Westford at No. 8 St. John’s Prep (TBA).
St. Mary’s won the Division 1 state championship in 2017 and was bounced by Winchester in the quarterfinals last season.
“We have to keep playing our style of hockey,” Lee said. “We’re a blue-collar team that just has to work for everything they get. We’ll just try to be better with the X’s and O’s in the next game.”
