PEABODY — One bad period was the difference in Wednesday’s boys hockey clash at McVann-O’Keefe Memorial Rink for host Peabody and visiting Watertown as the Red Raiders walked away with an 8-4 win to mathematically eliminate the Tanners (5-10-1) from the state tournament.
The game was up for grabs after the first period with the score knotted at 2-2, but Watertown came out on a mission in the second, scoring four goals in the first 12 minutes to put the Tanners in a 6-2 hole.
“Obviously we were lazy in that second period, we came out slow,” said Peabody coach Christian Wright. “We really came out very flat and gave up those three quick goals (in the first five minutes), but we had no one to blame but ourselves, from the goaltender to the defense to up front, we were very lazy. We just had one really bad three-quarters of a period when we gave goals away at an alarming rate.”
Junior forward Andrew Phillips (two goals), senior captain and forward Michael Zarro (goal, assist) and freshman forward Luke Caruso (two assists) led the Tanners with two points each, while senior forward Alex Freedman also scored. Senior defenseman Austin Higinbotham, junior forward Luke Buckley and sophomore defenseman Andrew Sousa notched one assist each.
Watertown dominated the early going, but it was Peabody who scored first. Sousa slipped a through pass to Freedman, who was shoulder-to-shoulder with a Watertown defenseman trying to body Sousa off the puck in the offensive zone. Freedman managed to get off an off-balance shot, slipping the puck between Watertown goalie Kevin Green’s legs to put Peabody on top just two minutes in.
Watertown’s Raffi Lachinian knotted the score at 1-1 at the 10:07 mark.
Peabody answered right back 15 seconds later. Higinbotham fed Phillips, who blistered a rising wrist shot past Green from point blank range to give Peabody a 2-1 lead.
Unfortunately for the Tanners, that was as good as it got, as the Red Raiders scored five straight goals in a span of about 15 minutes spilling over from the 12:05 mark of the first period through the 12:06 mark of the second to put Watertown in the driver’s seat with a 6-2 lead.
Peabody fought back. With 8.4 seconds left in the second period, Zarro — wide open and camped on the left side of the net — ripped a cross from the right boards into the back of the net to make it 6-3. Caruso and Buckley received assists.
Phillips kept the momentum going in the third period to make it a 6-4 game with Caruso and Zarro picking up assists.
From that point, the game got ugly. Both teams were assessed game misconducts and major penalties.
“I felt like we had some momentum and started playing a bit and then obviously that momentum gets cut down when the referees want to be part of the game,” said Wright. “That’s the second time I have had problems with those two refs. It’s disappointing when you are trying to climb back into the game and they take it away from you. That’s not okay. They say that hockey is making a push to make it safer but we took a hard hit in the head, intentional boarding and two knee checks and they weren’t called.”
Wright said the Tanners still have a lot of work to do this season.
“I wanted to improve constantly throughout the whole season and it feels like we’ve hit a bit of a wall,” he said. “Five wins is never good enough. I feel we need to have higher expectations so we aim to finish the season positively.”
Peabody hosts Winthrop Wednesday evening (5:15).
