NEWBURYPORT – You couldn’t blame the Saugus hockey team if it wanted to try to get out of the regular season without losing any more bodies, having already lost captain Mike Scuzzarella for the season with a broken wrist and having another player, Derek Stretton, on the ice with 16 stitches in his arm.Monday at Graf Rink, the Sachems took the ice in the opening round of the Fournier Division of the Newburyport Bank Ice Hockey Classic trying to get some momentum and right a ship that was quickly taking on water.Mission accomplished.Saugus jumped on Shawsheen early, taking a 4-0 lead after one period, before having to hang on for dear life down the stretch to take a 5-3 win over the Rams and book a trip to Wednesday night’s (7) Fournier final.Saugus’ opponent on Wednesday will be surprising Winthrop, which continued to confound Revere, beating the Patriots for a second time this season thanks to a 3-2 victory.”I can’t say enough about the character of my team,” Saugus coach Chris Connors said. “We’ve battled through injuries the whole year ? This is a resilient group of kids. I told them they would have to battle to the buzzer (Monday) and they did that.”Not even Connors could have expected the start that his team got off to against one of the top teams in the upcoming Division 3 North tournament.Joe Vecchione set the tone on Saugus’ first shot when he beat Rams (14-5-0) goalie Josh Sanchez 5-hole for a 1-0 lead.Seconds later, Shawsheen’s Mike DeRosa was called for elbowing, putting the Sachems on the power play. And with three seconds left on that man advantage, Steve Strangie fired a Craig Cooper rebound under the crossbar for a 2-0 at 2:05.Stretton gave Saugus a 3-0 lead at 7:24 when his shot from the blue line got through a screen and past Sanchez. A penalty to Rich Divitto just over a minute later led to Saugus’ fourth goal, a shot from the right wing by Justin Chiulli, and the end of Sanchez’s day that saw him make only one save on five shots.”I certainly didn’t expect to be up 4-0,” Connors said. “Shawsheen is a big, physical and good-skating team.”The second period began like the first ended, with the Sachems continuing their attack on the Shawsheen goal. But backup netminder Bill Surette was outstanding, allowing the Rams offense to finally get in gear.Kyle Leblanc got Shawsheen on the board at 5:39 when he scored on a Divitto rebound. Less than a minute later, DeRosa gave the Rams more momentum when he jammed home another loose puck in the Saugus crease to make it 4-2 heading to the third.”I think that we stepped back a bit in the second and got a little complacent,” Connors said. “And they almost made us pay.”The Rams continued to pelt the Saugus net, but goaltender Paul Essery made a plethora of spectacular saves to preserve the Sachems lead.”Paul played a tournament type of game (Monday). And that’s what we need him to do,” Connors said. “He made some spectacular saves to keep us in the game.”The Rams didn’t go quietly. Matt Blanchard cut the lead to 4-3 with 53.2 seconds remaining. But Ryan McManus put the game away with an empty-net goal at 14:48.In the second game of the day, Winthrop outplayed Revere from the get-go, putting the Patriots on the precipice of missing the state tournament.Revere must beat or tie Shawsheen Wednesday to clinch a trip to the postseason.”Winthrop was the better team by far (Monday),” Revere coach Jim Palumbo said. “We didn’t come to play and they did.”The Vikings (5-9-4) pelted Nick DiMare with 15 shots in the first period, but only had Dan Shannon’s marker at 4:59 to show for it. Revere tied the game at 7:39 when Paul Pelletier fired home a Chris Mastropietro rebound.Winthrop went back in front less than two minutes into the second when George Costa banked home a power-play goal off the skate of DiMare to make it 2-1. On the next shift, Al Petrilli’s wrist shot from the high slot broke through DiMare’s pads for a 3-1 Viking lead.Revere (8-8-3) fought back in the third as Mastropietro