NORTH BILLERICA — When you get to the Final 4, anything can happen. With a trip to TD Garden on the line, it took overtime to separate the two teams that saw No. 6 Methuen/Tewksbury beat No. 2 St. Mary’s 2-1.
The Spartans got the perfect start. On their first attack, defender Kaylee Dinkel took a shot that crept past the Red Rangers’ goalie to give St. Mary’s a 1-0 lead just 26 seconds into the game.
Despite the early deficit, Methuen controlled play for much of the game, consistently in the Spartans’ zone and getting shots off. Fortunately for St. Mary’s, sophomore netminder Avery Sico kept the Red Rangers off the scoreboard. Sico finished with 30 saves on 32 shots.
“I thought Avery played outstanding today. She was great and kept us in the game,” St. Mary’s head coach Frank Pagliuca said. “Against good teams you can’t sit back. We sat back too much, unfortunately.”
What hurt the Spartans was the seven penalties they committed, leading to tired legs on the ice and constant defending. Pagliuca said that was a big reason why they couldn’t build momentum.
“It’s a tough way to go out. We took too many penalties. You’re not going to win games taking seven penalties,” Pagliuca said. “We battled hard and got the early goal. We just couldn’t really get anything else going. There were nerves the first couple of periods.”
Still leading 1-0 in the third period, the Spartans were on the penalty kill. With 8:07 left, after a save by Sico, the puck fell to Lauren Ryan, who had an open net to tie the game at 1.
The Spartans found their groove in the third period, and defender Camdyn Driscoll hit the post with four minutes remaining.
The game went to overtime, where Methuen had two big chances to end it while on the power play, but Sico kept them out. However, she wasn’t able to stop Annalise Blais, who fired a glove-side shot past Sico for the game-winner.
After the game, both Dinkel and Driscoll received praise from their coach.
“Camdyn and Kaylee were rocks back there. They both played great,” Pagliuca said. “We couldn’t use our full bench tonight because we had to keep killing penalties, but they played great.”
Although it was a tough loss, the Spartans graduate just two seniors, and Pagliuca hopes the team uses the defeat as motivation for next year.
“We had a great year and I’m proud of them. It was a really tough game and we battled to the end. They just finished it,” Pagliuca said.
Although it was a bittersweet tournament run, Pagliuca said he had a lot of fun coaching this group.
“They’re a great group and a lot of fun. They’re easy to coach and it’s a pleasure to show up to practice with all of them,” Pagliuca said. “They worked hard this year and improved tremendously. It’s a tough loss, but hopefully they’ll use it as motivation for next year. It’s raw right now and tough to deal with, but we’ll be OK.”
The Spartans finished the season with a 20-4-2 record.
