LYNN — The St. Mary’s boys hockey team had been itching to start the season and that showed Wednesday night in the Spartans’ opener.
Brady Carpenter opened up the scoring just 12 seconds into the game and the Spartans never looked back in a 7-0 win at Connery Memorial Rink.
“First game, you never know what you’re going to get,” Spartans coach Mark Lee said. “We’ve had some great preseason scrimmages and practices so we felt good about how we were and were ready to play coming in. To get a goal off the first shift was really nice.”
Carpenter and Kyle LoNigro led the Spartans with two goals each. Max Giardina added another goal while Brady Bullock and Dante D’Ambrosio each added their first career varsity goals in a big night for the Spartans offense.
Transfer goalkeeper Sal Caruso got the shutout in net.
“It was great to see some guys who have never been in that role come in and put some pucks away for us. It was a nice night for them,” Lee said.
St. Mary’s defense didn’t skip a beat either, limiting the Crusaders to just five shots while Caruso did the rest.
“At St. Mary’s it’s defense first,” Lee said. “We take pride in our defensive zone. The kids work hard in our zone and we hope to create some offense from good defense. It wasn’t perfect, we certainly have some more work to do, but for the most part we committed to the defensive zone. That created some of the offense. It also gave our goaltender, who we have a lot of respect for, the ability to get a shutout.”
St. Mary’s got started when a loose puck trickled through the legs of a Lowell Catholic defender in the opening seconds. Carpenter was there to pick it up and set up a point-blank shot that found the back of the net to put the Spartans ahead 1-0.
The Spartans dominated possession the rest of the period, outshooting the Crusaders 7-1, but goalkeeper Cody Lesko kept Lowell Catholic right in the game for the first 15 minutes.
With just under two minutes remaining in the first LoNigro dished a pass to Carpenter on a 2-on-1 but his shot rang off the post and St. Mary’s went into the first intermission with a 1-0 lead.
St. Mary’s went on the power play early on in the second period and took full advantage. Kory Ouellette assisted a goal from Bullock to put the Spartans ahead 2-0.
Lowell Catholic went on the man-advantage next and it gave Caruso a chance to flash his pads with a pair of saves, including a kick save on a breakaway chance.
The Spartans dominated possession from there. Carpenter added his second goal of the game and a few minutes later LoNigro added another tally to stretch the St. Mary’s lead to 4-0 before the third.
The final period was more of the same. The Spartans dominated possession while LoNigro, Giardina and D’Ambrosio each added goals to cap the the 7-0 win.
St. Mary’s (1-0) travels to Arlington Catholic Saturday (2).
