PEABODY — The Peabody boys hockey team came out strong and played a great first period Wednesday evening against Beverly, but in the end the Tanner just didn’t have enough gas in the tank and fell to the Panthers, 8-3, at McVann-O’Keefe Memorial Rink.
“I felt that we really played one of our better games for the most part, no matter what the score says,” said Peabody coach Christian Wright. “We came out strong and we were hanging with Beverly early, and I got a little too aggressive and we ended up running out of gas. It was a risk, but we were hanging with one of the better teams in our league and I thought it was the right move.”
Senior Matt Devin — a transfer student from Lynn — scored two goals to pace the Peabody offensive attack.
“Matt Devin has been a godsend for us, and he’s been such a strong player,” said Wright. “He’s strong, smart, unselfish and so coachable. He’s come in here and fit in so well with the guys, and he’s really one of the main reasons we’ve been competitive in most of these games. He never has an off night.”
Senior Luke Buckley added one goal and one assist, while senior Nathan LePage had two assists and senior Anthony Bettencourt added one assist. Senior goalie Lucas DeMild made 28 saves in the loss.
“We’ve been getting some strong contributions from our seniors, especially our top two lines,” Wright said.
It was a back-and-forth first period, with the two teams trading blows from start to finish. It started less than two minutes into the game, when Beverly’s Timmy Sullivan netted an unassisted goal to give the Panthers a 1-0 lead right off the bat.
The score remained there for the next eight minutes before Peabody was able to tie the score on a goal from Devin with just over four minutes to play. But the tie only lasted a little over a minute, as Beverly retook the lead on a goal from Gavin Doyle with three minutes to play. Peabody answered right back when Buckley cleaned up a rebound in front of the net with 1:25 to play to tie the game up at 2-2 going into the first intermission.
The back and forth continued into the early part of the second period, with Beverly taking its third lead of the game on a goal from Max Murphy and Peabody responding just over a minute later with Devin’s second goal of the game. But then, with the score tied 3-3, Beverly took over.
The Panthers went on to score three unanswered goals over the final 10 minutes of the second period, taking a 6-3 lead into the final frame.
Beverly added another goal early in the third to go up 7-3, and the Tanners simply couldn’t mount a comeback from there.
Peabody (1-5-1) hosts Danvers Friday evening (5:15).
“The key for us is just finishing,” said Wright. “We were down 3-1 to Masconomet after two periods and ended up losing 8-1. We were down 3-2 to Gloucester after two and lost 8-3. (Wednesday) we were down 3-2 and lost 8-3. We just have to find a way to conserve our energy enough to make it through the third period, but that’s tough to do when you only have 10 skaters on the roster.”
