BC High 5, St. John’s Prep 2

Facing its first deficit of the young season, the BC High hockey team relied on arguably its most valuable commodity to lead the team to victory: it�s leadership. Senior captain Steve DeForge and junior Jake Lemanski each tallied a pair of goals and sophomore Brandon Payzant collected 19 saves as the Eagles BC High opened Catholic Conference play with a 5-2 victory over St. John�s Prep Thursday afternoon at Dorchester. �Both [DeForge and Lemanski] are leaders on this team,� said BC High coach John Flaherty. �Both of them step up when the games are on the line. Both of them are good puck shooters. They get themselves in good positions to score, and that�s what I expect of those two.� web-tease BostonGlobe.com [please enter a web teaser] web-tease Boston.com [please enter a web teaser] related-links BostonGlobe.com [related links] related-links Boston.com [related links] related-boxes BostonGlobe.com [related boxes] related-boxes Boston.com [related boxes] multimedia-container BostonGlobe.com [caption] [credits] [alt-tag] multimedia-container Boston.com [caption] [credits] [alt-tag] text By Andrew MacDougall Globe Correspondent DORCHESTER - Facing its first deficit of the young season, the BC High hockey team relied on arguably its most valuable commodity to lead the team to victory: it�s leadership. Senior captain Steve DeForge and junior Jake Lemanski each tallied a pair of goals and sophomore Brandon Payzant collected 19 saves as the Eagles BC High opened Catholic Conference play with a 5-2 victory over St. John�s Prep Thursday afternoon at Dorchester. �Both [DeForge and Lemanski] are leaders on this team,� said BC High coach John Flaherty. �Both of them step up when the games are on the line. Both of them are good puck shooters. They get themselves in good positions to score, and that�s what I expect of those two.� Trailing, 2-1, late in the first period, BC High (4-0-0, 1-0-0 Catholic Conference) received its first of four straight unanswered goals from Tim Larocque. The junior knotted the game with 1:20 remaining in the first as he tapped home a rebound following a blue-line blast from defenseman Sam Topham. cqs BC High reclaimed took the lead at 4:37 of the second as forward Pat Kramer (two assists) won picked up a faceoff win to the right of the St. John�s Prep net. The draw came to the stick of Lemanski, who quickly flicked the puck past Prep goaltender Anthony Selvitella (19 saves). Clinging to a one-goal lead, Payzant � making only his fourth varsity start � appeared unfazed in net as he turned aside all 17 Prep shots in the final two periods. Lemanski potted his second goal with 7.1 seconds left in the second period as he snuck sneaked a close-range shot inside the near post after corralling a pass from defenseman Trevor Davis.cq �In the beginning of the game I thought we were a little nervous, to be honest with you,� said DeForge. �The energy was definitely there, but with some mistakes and stuff. Once we had a chance to calm down, I thought we played well in the second period and we kept it going in the third. � Early in the third, DeForge stole the puck in the neutral zone and skated through the left wing circle before beating Selvitella on his glove-side with a sharp wrist shot to push the score to 5-2. BC High scored the game�s opening goal at 3:23 of the first period after earning a five-on-three advantage. D eForge�s shot from the top of the slot found its way through traffic and clanked off the post before tucking inside the goal line for the 1-0 lead. St. John�s Prep (2-1-0, 0-1-0 Catholic Conference) responded less than two minutes later. Junior Ted McNamara had his shot bounce off a defender�s blade and over the shoulder of Payzant to tie the score. With 4:02 left in the first, senior Mark Etherington got his stick on a loose puck in the slot and went top shelf with a backhander to put the visiting Eagles on top, 2-1.

»St. John’s Prep schedule/results

»BC High schedule/results