LYNN — The St. Mary’s boys hockey team scored less than two minutes into the game and never looked back Wednesday, notching a 4-1 win over Franklin in a non-conference game at Connery Rink.
“To be honest, we’ve been struggling to really put a full three periods of good hockey together, but this was a solid, three-period game by us,” said St. Mary’s coach Mark Lee. “This is a good time of the year to start getting back to St. Mary’s hockey, so hopefully this is a sign of things to come for us.”
Before the game, the Spartans honored their class of seven seniors — Luke Sargent, William Foglietta, Austin Foglietta, Chris Kolodziej, Owen Maguire, Alex Nazarian and Sal Caruso. Aside from Caruso, who transferred to the program from Austin Prep this season, the senior class went a combined 56-25-9 over their four years and was a part of the Spartans’ Division 1 state championship team in 2017.
“It’s a group whose leadership on and off the ice is impressive,” Lee said of the senior class. “They’re all good in the classroom, they’re leaders in the locker room and they lead by example on the ice. It’s a great group of guys.”
St. Mary’s was led on offense by Dante D’Ambrosio, who had one goal and two assists. Christian Moran, Brady Bullock and Colby Magliozzi each scored one goal, while Davis Kinne had two assists.
In net, Caruso notched 21 saves and didn’t allow a goal until the final five minutes of the game.
“Sal has been huge for us this year, and he continues to make big save after big save for us,” said Lee. “He’s shown great leadership and maturity for us, and it all starts with goaltending.”
The Spartans struck quickly in the first period. After drawing a penalty just 38 seconds into the game, St. Mary’s quickly took advantage on the power play. D’Ambrosio sent a cross-ice pass to Moran at the bottom of the left circle, and Moran ripped a shot under the crossbar to make it 1-0 Spartans.
St. Mary’s was able to make it 2-0 right before the end of the first, getting a goal from D’Ambrosio with 2:44 to play.
The second period saw the Spartans continue to extend their lead, getting goals from Magliozzi and Bullock within a 3-minute span to make it 4-0.
But it wasn’t all clean living for St. Mary’s, as the Spartans were called for eight penalties in the game. They also had five power plays and scored one power-play goal, so Lee and the Spartans looked at it as a wash.
“I thought all of the special teams actually gave us the momentum,” Lee said. “We were great on the penalty kill, we scored a powerplay goal and we scored in a 4-on-4 situation. I was happy with the way we were aggressive on special teams.”
Franklin finally got on the board with a goal late in the third period, but it was too little too late as St. Mary’s was able to coast to the victory.
St. Mary’s (11-5-2) is back on the ice Saturday evening (6) against Catholic Central League foe Bishop Fenwick.
“We’re starting to get healthy, so hopefully we’ll be able to get a few guys back over the next several days,” Lee said. “Going up against Fenwick is always a good game and they’re really improved this year, so it should be a fun one.”