LYNN — The St. Mary’s girls hockey team had plenty of preparation ahead of its home opener, even scrimmaging against its opponent Matignon just days ago. But when it came to the real thing on Monday night, the Spartans fell flat.
St. Mary’s struggled to capitalize on scoring chances and mistakes piled up in the third period, resulting in a 3-1 loss to the Warriors at Connery Rink.
“Honestly I think we got outworked the entire game,” St. Mary’s coach Frank Pagliuca said. “We scrimmaged Matignon Saturday and had a lot of success against them in that scrimmage. I think we thought we were going to come in and it was going to be the same thing.”
The Spartans’ lone goal came off the stick of senior Felicia D’Alessandro with assists from Haylie Grossmann and Amanda Forziati, a small bright spot in a game filled with missed opportunities.
“We had to finish more chances, but the whole game wasn’t about that,” Pagliuca said. “We got outplayed, bottom line. Multiple turnovers in the defensive zone, overskating pucks, losing 50-50 battles. We were making bad decisions with the puck and we weren’t picking anybody up when we didn’t have the puck.
“I thought (Matignon) outworked us all three periods, they just wanted it more,” Pagliuca said. “We were soft on the puck, got beat to a lot of pucks. We made some terrible decisions with the puck and we didn’t finish our chances. So we got what we deserved. We deserved to lose (Monday) and that’s what happened.”
Matignon got to work with some pressure early on but a few quick saves from St. Mary’s goalkeeper Angela Catino (16 saves) kept things even.
The Spartans went on the offensive from there before their top offensive line got them on the board. D’Alessandro made a nice play to keep the puck in the offensive zone before Forziati dished a pass to Grossmann at the point. Grossmann sent a shot towards the Matignon net that was perfectly deflected by D’Alessandro to put St. Mary’s ahead 1-0 midway through the first.
St. Mary’s tallied up plenty of shots on net from there, carrying the chances over into the second period, but couldn’t capitalize.
That’s when the mistakes started to pile up. With just under seven minutes to go in the second, a loose puck behind the Spartans’ goal leaked right out front to a wide open Alaina Aiello, who ripped a one-timer to tie things up at 1-1.
Things got worse for the Spartans in the third and Matignon quickly took over the game. The Warriors notched a quick goal just 12 seconds into the period and capitalized again over a minute later on a power play chance to build a 3-1 lead.
There was plenty of time left for the Spartans to try to climb back into things, but they couldn’t get anything going. St. Mary’s was out shot 10-6 in the final period and the Warriors closed out the win.
“We need to compete harder, play with more urgency and not rely on talent,” Pagliuca said. “Those little things, determination, commitment and competing level play a huge factor in results and we found that out (Monday).”
With a quick turnaround before traveling to Catholic Central League rival Arlington Catholic Wednesday (6), Pagliuca hopes the Spartans (0-1) can salvage something from the lackluster start.
“It’s a very disappointing effort,” Pagliuca said. “We have had four very good weeks of practice and I’m hoping the team takes it as a learning experience. We’re back on the ice (Tuesday) then we have Arlington Catholic on Wednesday. Hopefully we can rebound, but that (performance) is not going to cut it.”
