NEWBURYPORT — The Lynn Jets hockey team got off to a decent start in the opening round of the Newburyport Bank Classic on Monday afternoon, but a bad second period led to a bit of a collapse as the Jets fell to Longmeadow, 7-0, at Graf Rink. Lynn came out with the mindset of being the more physical team, which worked for some time, but eventually Longmeadow just took over the game.
“We came out and played okay in the first period, played with a lot of physicality,” said Lynn coach Mike Roberts. “But giving up the early goals in both the first and second periods really hurt us today, and from there things really snowballed on us.”
Lynn goalie Jack Gallant tallied 25 saves in the loss.
The Jets got off to a solid start in the physicality department, knocking Longmeadow players all over the ice. But once the Lancers found their footing, about four minutes into the action, things took a turn. Longmeadow got its first goal from Spencer Robbins on a beautiful deke and took a 1-0 lead into the first intermission.
The second period is where things started to fall apart for Lynn. Just 15 seconds into the period, Robbins scored his second goal to make it 2-0. The Jets recovered a bit and played about 10 minutes of great hockey, but they couldn’t capitalize on any scoring chances. Matthew Franz added a goal with about six minutes left to make it 3-0, then Mason Baron-Pinkowski scored with 2:30 left to give Longmeadow a commanding 4-0 lead going into the second break.
“I was happy with what we did in the first period, and our goal was to come out in the second and withstand their attack for the first five minutes of the second, but then they scored within 15 seconds,” Roberts said. “That really changed the whole dynamic of the game right there. Maybe if we had been able to get a goal after that and make it 2-1 things would’ve played out differently, but it kept going downhill for us.”
Things continued to go in the wrong direction for Lynn in the third period, as Robbins netted his hat-trick goal less than five minutes in to go up by five goals. After tallies by Videep Vemulapalli and Baron-Pinkowski, the Lancers skated away with the 7-0 win.
Luckily for the Jets, they don’t have to end the regular season on that sour note. Lynn will have a chance to close out the year on better terms when the Jets play Hamilton-Wenham on Wednesday night.
“We have an opportunity to end on a higher note than this, so we’ve got to take it and run with it,” Robert said. “Obviously we didn’t want a 7-0 loss on the second-to-last game of the year, but that’s a really good team we went up against. We’ll take the lessons that we need to from this and move forward on Wednesday.”
The Jets and Generals will face off at 7 p.m. back at Graf Rink.