STONEHAM — The No. 4 St. John’s Prep hockey team needed a win Wednesday night to stay alive in the Division 1A “Super 8” tournament and the Eagles delivered, defeating No. 6 Catholic Memorial 5-2 at Stoneham Arena.
After going 0-1-1 against the Knights in Catholic Conference play this season, St. John’s took an early two-goal lead in the first and was ahead the rest of the night.
“I think every time you step on the ice you want to get that first goal and take that early lead,” Eagles coach Kris Hanson said. “But I think maybe it was even more important (Wednesday) against a team like CM that we know is really stingy on the back end. They give up one, two goals every game so we knew it would be a race to two goals. I was really pleasantly surprised to get that second goal in the first period.”
Ryan Hart (two goals, two assists) did everything in this one, notching the Eagles first and last goals of the night while playing a key role on a busy penalty kill.
“Hart also had to kill a lot of penalties,” Hanson said. “He’s one of our killers and we had to kill (several) penalties, killed a 5-on-3, so we killed penalties when the game was on the line. He was a big part of that. And he scored that first goal which is so important.”
Nick Townshend also had a big game with two goals and an assist while Ryan Webb scored a shorthanded goal for St. John’s red-hot offense.
“If you watch us throughout the course of the game, we were banging pucks in (Wednesday),” Hanson said. “Webb’s goal was a rebound, that first shot was a nice shot by Ryan (Hart) up high and Townshend’s (first goal) was crashing the net. We can play both styles. Our goal was to get to the net, create traffic to make things difficult for their goalie and try to put some pucks into the back of the net. We did that.”
Hart got the offense started when he made a nice play to keep a puck into the offensive zone and curled into the slot before firing a wrister that found the back of the net to put St. John’s ahead 1-0.
The Knight’s controlled a chunk of the first period thanks to three St. John’s penalties, but goalie Noah Dorsey-Sorofman was up to the task with 11 first-period saves.
Webb broke free on the penalty kill a few minutes later, skating to a breakaway and scoring to stretch the Eagles lead to 2-0 before the second.
“That was a great play by Webb,” Hanson said. “Our team speed in situations like that can really be a plus. Cole (Lopilato) chipped it up and Webb is tough to stop in open ice. We have a few of those guys. He used his speed, went to the net and their guy made a stop but he put the rebound in. That’s how to stick with it and it was such an important goal for us.”
Catholic Memorial came out hot after the break and cut the lead to one but Townshend lit the lamp twice in the second to give the Eagles a commanding 4-1 lead.
The Knights got on the board again late in the third but the Eagles couldn’t have responded any faster. Some smooth tic-tac-toe passing between Townshend, Matthew Taylor and Hart lead to Harts second goal of the night to cap off the win.
St. John’s moves on to another matchup with a familiar Catholic Conference foe in BC High Saturday (7:30) at Loring Arena.
“We know what’s at stake,” Hanson said. “You kind of go back to last year. We played in the Division 1 North tournament, every game was do-or-die and we lost in the North final. A lot of these same kids were there so they’re used to playing with their backs against the wall.”
