MIDDLETON — The No. 2 St. John’s Prep hockey team knocked on the door all afternoon on Friday, but the Eagles simply couldn’t find the back of the net in a 3-1 loss to No. 4 Catholic Memorial in a Catholic Conference Tournament semifinal game at Essex Sports Center.
“We certainly didn’t have our best game out there in terms of execution,” said Prep coach Kristian Hanson. “It’s obviously tough to lose a game like this because we were hoping to play for the league title tomorrow, but the guys battled the whole way. We just made a few too many mistakes in this one.”
Jake DiNapoli scored the lone goal for the Eagles, while Zach McKennelley had one assist. Prep goalie Cam Smith made 15 saves in the loss.
While Prep dominated the shots on goal by a margin of 29-17, the Eagles could not find a way to get a puck past Catholic Memorial goalie Dom Walecka — who notched his second straight shutout in the victory.
“He was excellent when we faced him a year ago, he was excellent when we faced him last week and he was excellent again (Friday),” Hanson said of Walecka. “He’s become probably the most dependable goalie in the league. We sent plenty of shots at him and tried to get in front of the net to take his eyes away, but I guess we didn’t do a good enough job of that.”
After battling to a scoreless tie at the end of the first half, both teams came out firing in the second. It was Catholic Memorial that struck first, with Dylan LaMonica knocking home a loose puck to take a 1-0 lead just four minutes into the half. Ten minutes later, Seamus Burke found the back of the net to extend the lead, then Glen Considine scored an empty-net goal to put Catholic Memorial up 3-0 in the final minute.
DiNapoli scored for the Eagles with 15.6 seconds to play, but it was too little, too late for the Prep.
St. John’s Prep wraps up the season with a 3-3-4 record. After two COVID shutdowns during the year while trying to acclimate a host of new varsity players, Hanson is proud of how his team persevered until the end.
“It was a solid year for us, and I think by all accounts we overachieved,” said Hanson. “We had probably 75 percent of our players play their first varsity minutes this year, so it was a building process. We dealt with two shutdowns, our opponents getting shut down and a host of other issues, but our guys found a way to work through it and I’m really proud of their accomplishments. We’ve got a young, talented group coming back next year, so we’re looking forward to the future.”
