LYNN — Sometimes, it’s easy to give up, but that’s not in the vocabulary for St. Mary’s boys hockey team.
Despite 44 shots on goal, it wasn’t until the final period when the Spartans scored en route to a 2-1 win against Winchester at Connery Rink.
With 2:27 remaining in the game and St. Mary’s trailing 1-0, Colton Carpenter spotted Finn Racki in front of the net. Racki made no mistake to knot things up.
“I’m looking at the clock and I’m looking at my teammates, knowing that we have to get something going here to get some momentum for states,” said Racki, referring to the upcoming Division 1 state tournament. “We got the puck in the corner. He gave it to me in front and I just tucked it in. Momentum then swung to us.”
One minute later, the Spartans forced a turnover, leading to a Stephen Nason breakaway. His shot went under the crossbar and popped the goalie’s water bottle for the game-winning goal.
“I got the opportunity,” Nason said. “The puck was on my stick. I ripped it and it went in.”
St. Mary’s coach Matthew Smith praised Winchester goalie Graham Emerick.
“Really special. He’s the brother of Aiden Emerick, who took the (Winchester) team to The Garden that narrowly lost to St. John’s Prep,” Smith said. “We had 44 shots on net on 79 attempts. They had 25. He almost won the game for them.”
The Spartans conceded late in the second period when a costly turnover gave Winchester’s Thomas Lisy a free shot on goal with 39.4 ticks to go.
Smith decided to play two lines for the final seven minutes.
“We moved Nason with Racki and Carpenter, then we went to (Aiden) St. Pierre, Cole Alexander, and Joey Mongiello,” Smith said. “Because we’re in shape and played all those heavy teams, we’re able to do that. Going down to two lines generated those two goals.”
St. Mary’s killed every penalty Thursday, but Smith wants the team to stop committing “selfish” ones.
“We had to sit a couple of guys today because of selfish penalties and we’ve been doing that all year,” Smith said. “We have to hold guys accountable and one of those guys was Finn, but he made up for it in the third period.”
St. Mary’s netminder Connor Anderson was strong — blocker or glove.
“We’ve had two great goalies all year. Their stats are identical. Matthew Boyer is 5-5-1 and now Connor is 5-4-1,” Smith said. “After this game, they have identical goals against and almost identical save percentages.”
Even when St. Mary’s suffered the second-period sucker punch, Smith said the message was to keep believing in each other.
“Just support each other and stay positive on the bench. Keep fighting until the end of the game because something good is going to happen and when it does, let’s build on the momentum,” he said. “That’s exactly how it played out.”
The Spartans turn their attention to Saturday’s bracket release at 10 a.m.
“We don’t wear ‘belief’ on the back of our practice jerseys for nothing,” Racki said.
“One game at a time and one period at a time — it’s a constant belief,” Nason said.
