The St. Mary’s girls hockey team went toe-to-toe with the defending Division 1 co-state champions on Saturday and held their own, earning a 3-3 draw with Catholic Central League foe Austin Prep on the road at Stoneham Arena.
“It’s a bit of a disappointing tie because we let it get away at the end,” said St. Mary’s coach Frank Pagliuca. “We had a 3-1 lead in the third period, and we just have to close out games like that. I was happy with our pace of play, but we’ve got to start finishing our opportunities.”
Jenna Chaplain scored two goals for the Spartans in the draw, while Regan Sullivan scored one goal. Aria Kader had two assists, while Maggie Pierce, Felicia D’Alessandro and Marina DiBiasio each had one assist.
It was a back-and-forth battle from start to finish. After St. Mary’s took an early lead in the first period on a goal from Chaplain, Austin Prep responded to tie the score at 1-1 with around five minutes to play in the period. St. Mary’s responded with a goal of its own when Chaplain scored her second of the night, and the Spartans took a 2-1 lead into the first intermission.
Sullivan added a goal for St. Mary’s to push the lead to 3-1 in the second period, but Austin Prep wasn’t finished yet. The Cougars responded with two unanswered goals to knot the score at 3-3.
“Our special teams hasn’t been great so far this year,” said Pagliuca. “We let up a powerplay goal (Saturday) and we let one up in our game against Matignon, and our powerplay offense hasn’t been able to get anything going either. That’s definitely an area we need to work on.”
The final 17 minutes of the game went without a score, and the two CCL foes each skated away with a point when the final buzzer sounded.
St. Mary’s (1-1-1) is back in action Wednesday afternoon (4) when it hosts Arlington Catholic at Connery Rink.
“The bottom line is that we have to start taking the bull by the horns and winning these games,” said Pagliuca. “We’ve let a few leads slip away now, and we can’t do that. We have to strike when we get the opportunity and we have to be able to finish games.”