MIDDLETON — In an all-out team effort, the No. 1 St. John’s Prep hockey team moved to the quarterfinal round of the Division 1 tournament with a 7-0 victory over No. 16 Winchester in the Round of 16 Monday evening at Essex Sports Center.
For most of the first period, the two teams seemed evenly matched. It wasn’t until Eagles’ sophomore Cam Umlah scored the first goal of the game late into the frame that the Eagles got going, and their momentum carried on from there. Jake Vana immediately scored a goal of his own off an assist from both Tommy Sarni — who himself had one goal later on — and Pierce Blaeser — who had three assists.
From then on, Winchester just could not withstand the pressure from the Eagles for the remainder of the game. The scoring fest didn’t stop there, as Aidan Holland and Jimmy Ayers both scored in the second while Sarni, Christian Rosa and Joe Melanson scored the goals of the final frame.
As has been the case all year, Prep head coach Kristian Hanson is always looking for ways to help his team continue to improve as the season progresses.
“We just want to get better every time we go out on the ice,” said Hanson. “We want to be better when we play our next game. We can’t be satisfied with what we did out there tonight. We need to do more.”
While a victory of this caliber usually is near perfect, that wasn’t the case for Hanson. Even though the Eagles only had two penalties all game, they were able to keep their composure during difficult times in the game and had near-perfect puck awareness, finding the open man and their opportunities.
“It kind of felt like the first half of the season for us out there tonight,” said Hanson. “Pucks were finding the back of the net. I didn’t think we played differently than we did during the more recent games where we didn’t score.”
The thing that separates this team from the remainder of the competition, is how it views the big picture. For the Eagles, it does not matter if they have an amazing first period or an awful first period. Hanson and the Eagles look at the second and third period of the game as if they’re 0-0 and just go out to play to the best of their abilities.
St. John’s Prep (19-3-0) will now look to continue its playoff run Thursday evening (5:30), as the Eagles will host No. 8 Braintree in a Division 1 quarterfinal game back at Essex Sports Center.
