CM stops Central Catholic
Hingham earns its first victory
LOWELL - It took 45 minutes and then some, but Catholic Memorial finally handed Central Catholic its first loss of the season, 3-2, in a Super 8 tournament shootout last night at Tsongas Arena.
"We were really undermanned tonight," said CM coach Bill Hanson. "We ground out a win against a really tough undefeated team."
CM was without injured goaltender Ryan Hubbard, and lost leading scorer Derek Colucci with a broken jaw in the opening game of the tournament.
CM opened the scoring with a strike from Dan Cornell on a rebound of a Billy Carey shot at 11:31 of the first period.
The second period was played evenly, but CM put another one on the board. This time freshman David Lazaro found the back of the net for his first career goal.
"The young guys caught fire for us," said Hanson.
At 2:34 of the third period, Central finally broke through on a two-on-one, Brendon McCarron connecting.
With less than five minutes to play, Central (16-1-7) drew even with a Tommy Evangelista goal.
After eight minutes of scoreless overtime, the teams went to a shootout. Vinny Repucci and Shane Walsh scored in the first two rounds for the Knights before Connor McPhee got one back for Central.
Finally, in the fourth round, Garrett Noonan converted with a wrist shot to the stick side, giving the Knights the victory.
Now all four teams in Bracket 1 are 1-1.
"It's head to head now," said Hanson. "Which is the way it should be."
Hingham 3, Winchester 1 - Despite adversity, Hingham vowed to keep playing its game. The Harbormen did last night, and this time they had something to show for it.
Hingham got its first win of the Super 8 tournament, skating past Winchester.
"We showed a lot of resolve," said Hingham coach Tony Messina. "We knew we just needed more of the same from the last game and we would be hard to beat."
In that last game, Hingham dropped a 3-2 decision to Central Catholic despite a strong performance.
Last night, the Harbormen scored first and never looked back.
Tim Driscoll connected at 5:52 of the first period, banging home the rebound of a Ryan Driscoll shot.
Hingham outworked the Sachems in the first period, outshooting them, 12-6, then put the game away in the second.
"One team played desperate and one didn't," said Winchester coach John Messuri. "I don't take anything away from Hingham, either. They could have had eight or nine goals in the second period, but our goalie looked like [Dominik] Hasek."
The Harbormen didn't get nine, but they did get two, and that would be all they needed.
The first came on a power-play rush by Conor Coveney, who brought the puck coast to coast before beating Mike Messuri with a wrist shot.
The Harbormen struck again with another swarming possession around the net. This time PJ Falvey scored after a nice fake in front of the net. Brendan Wilbur and Jake Quinn assisted.
Winchester battled back in the third, outshooting the Harbormen, 9-6, but could manage only one goal - by Michael Seward on setups from Tim Mitropoulos and Kevin Carson at 5:58.
