SAUGUS — Thursday’s Kasabuski Christmas Tournament opener was one the Peabody boys hockey team would like to soon forget.
Peabody couldn’t do much right in an 11-1 loss to Wakefield.
The Warriors got up early and Peabody showed some life with a breakaway goal from Nathan LePage, but it was all Wakefield for the next 40 plus minutes. The Warriors had nine different goal scorers.
“Wakefield is definitely a few strides ahead of us,” Tanners coach Christian Wright said. “They play in a good league, they’re a good program and they’ve got some good athletes out there. They’re well coached and they came at us with intensity.
“We had zero intensity and zero legs. I’m a little confused myself as to what the real problem was. I tried a few different ways to figure it out and snap them out of it but we never did.”
Wakefield didn’t take long to get on the board with a one-timer from Brandon Vacca lighting the lamp just 1:22 into the game.
But Peabody responded when Andrew Phillips chipped a nice pass up to LePage and the latter scored his breakaway goal to tie things up 1-1 less than three minutes later.
Unfortunately the Tanners didn’t carry over any momentum from the goal. Scott Elwell and Cam Souza got the Warriors back on the board and out in front 3-1 before the second period.
Peabody managed a pair of early shots on net in the second but things started to get out of hand a few minutes later. Cal Tryder scored before Oliver Miller added two more goals, one a shorthanded tally, to stretch the Wakefield lead to 6-1. John Defeo got on the board next and Elwell scored another shorthanded goal to put Wakefield ahead 8-1 before the third period.
“When they realized we were going to to play the patsy (Thursday) they became really good,” Wright said. “They elevated their game their game because they smelled blood. That’s what a good team does. As they came harder and harder we sunk back into a hole.
“We’re a better team than what we showed, obviously. But we didn’t show any fight. Losing every race to every single puck, really not settling into our system and no one ever really got into position. We’re not good enough to do that.”
Things didn’t change in the third period. Howie Melanson, Tryder and Joey O’Brien each added goals to cap off the 11-1 win.
The Tanners (1-2) have a quick turnaround with the tournament’s consolation game Friday (10) against host Saugus at Kasabuski. It’s one of three games in four days for Peabody, including another game at home against Wakefield next Monday (2).
“The real kicker is we play them again in four days,” Wright said. “That’s a little disheartening to realize they just beat us like that. It’s a situation of effort. We’ve been going over things we want to do but we certainly didn’t do any of that (Thursday). Our goal all year is to try to be competitive in games and 11-1 is not competitive. It’s like you didn’t even get off the bus. If we don’t start playing it’s going to be a long season again.”