LYNN — The No. 5 St. Mary’s girls hockey team started the Division 1 tournament on the right track Wednesday night with a 6-1 win over No. 28 Lexington at Connery Rink.
St. Mary’s had struggled to find the back of the net in recent games, but that was no problem Wednesday. There’s still plenty for the Spartans to sharpen up as they move ahead in the bracket but head coach Frank Pagliuca was pleased with what he saw in the preliminary round.
“It was good to get the offense going, especially in a tournament game,” Pagliuca said. “Even saying that we still missed a lot of opportunities that we should’ve buried. We were a little tentative to start, gave up some chances to Lexington, but I thought we settled down and played well as the game went along.”
Jenna Chaplain and Felicia D’Alessandro each had two goals to lead St. Mary’s. Lexie Turner and Zoe Solomons each added one goal while Kelsey Sullivan led the way in a strong all-around defensive effort.
“Jenna Chaplain played great, she was really explosive on the puck,” Pagliuca said. “Felicia, when she had her opportunities out there, also had a jump in her step which is positive to see. Overall our defense played well. Kelsey Sullivan and Haylie Grossman played well overall and Megan (Parthum) and Aria (Kader) did a good job as well.”
Eighth grader Rhyan Pitari got the nod at goalie and, after allowing an early goal, was perfect the rest of the night with 21 saves.
“Rhyan, once she settled down and got the nerves down she was better moving on,” Pagliuca said. “She played well for us.”
The Spartans wasted no time getting started in this one. After getting the puck deep in the Lexington zone, Maggie Pierce sent a shot across the crease and Solomons was there to bury the tough angle shot just 15 second into the game to put St. Mary’s ahead 1-0.
But a Spartans penalty helped the Minutemen get right back into things. Shea Freda’s low shot from the point beat Pitari to her left to even things up at 1-1.
St. Mary’s brought most of the pressure from there. Midway through the first, Chaplain jumped a pass right in front of the Lexington goal and made a nice move to her backhand to put the Spartans back out front 2-1.
The Spartans got back on the board early in the second. Sullivan dished a perfect pass up ice to Chaplain, who skated to a breakaway and scored, stretching St. Mary’s lead to 3-1.
Lexington had a big edge in shots from there, but Pitari settled in nicely. The eighth-grade goalie put forward a perfect 11-save period to keep the the Spartans two-goal lead in tact.
St. Mary’s offense got back on track in the third. With Lexington on the power play, Turner trailed a play and picked up loose puck, skating to a breakaway and scoring to put the Spartans ahead 4-1.
D’Alessandro took over things from there, adding two goals in just 41 seconds late in third to ice the win.
The Spartans move on to the first round where they will play No. 12 Shrewsbury Monday (TBA) at Ryan Arena in Watertown.
“For us moving forward we have to just be better in all phases,” Pagliuca said. “We turned the puck over sometimes. We got beat along the wall (Wednesday) which is something we really need to work on because Shrewsbury is a big physical team. We can’t keep going like that but we have a couple days of practice to work on it.”
