PEABODY — The St. Mary’s boys hockey team is starting to get some positive momentum moving forward again, most recently evidenced by its 3-2 victory over Catholic Central League rival Bishop Fenwick Saturday evening at McVann-O’Keefe Memorial Rink. The Spartans, who beat Fenwick 10-1 in their first meeting of the season, jumped ahead in the first period Saturday and never looked back.
“It was definitely a different game than the first time around, and I give a lot of credit to Fenwick for fighting us the whole way,” said St. Mary’s coach Mark Lee. “To come out with the season sweep against your rival is always a great thing, but we know we can play better than we did (Saturday).”
Harrison Kinne, Colby Magliozzi and Kyle LoNigro each had one goal and one assist, while Dante D’Ambrosio had one assist in the win.
For Fenwick, Cameron Martin scored both goals in the losing effort.
“We knew it’d be a tough game, and we came out and played well,” said Fenwick coach Jim Quinlan. “We played better defense and got a good goaltending performance and that all helped, but what’s killing us is the fact that we just aren’t getting any scoring.”
The big difference in the game turned out to be special teams, as Fenwick was called for a number of penalties and St. Mary’s was able to capitalize with two powerplay goals.
“We spend a lot of time in practice on special teams, and it played a huge part in the win for us,” said Lee. “At the same time, we spent a lot of time in the penalty box and that was very uncharacteristic of us. So there are still things we need to work on, but it was nice to take advantage of the chances we got.”
“We played well on special teams against Austin Prep (last week), but we weren’t able to replicate that success (Saturday),” said Quinlan. “St. Mary’s has a good powerplay unit and they were able to take advantage of the opportunities we gave them.”
The first of those powerplay goals came with just five seconds to play in the first period when Kinne got deep behind the net and sent a pass out front to Magliozzi, who buried a one-timer to put the Spartans up 1-0 at the first intermission.
The score remained there until midway through the second period, when Kinne scored a 4-on-3 powerplay goal to put St. Mary’s ahead 2-0.
Fenwick continued to battle throughout the game, and in the third period the Crusaders were finally able to get on the scoreboard when Martin found the back of the net. Martin scored again with five seconds to play in the game to make it 3-2.
Fenwick (0-3) was scheduled to play on the road at Austin Prep Monday afternoon, but a positive COVID-19 test among the team has now shut the Crusaders down until Saturday at the earliest. Fenwick is scheduled to host Archbishop Williams
“It’s tough,” said Quinlan, whose team has dealt with three such shutdowns already this season. “You come out and play a game and find things you need to work on, then you get shut down for a week and you lose all your momentum. It’s a tough thing to have to deal with, but we know that it comes with the territory this season.”
St. Mary’s (3-0) hosts Arlington Catholic Monday afternoon (3) at Connery Rink. It’s the first game of what will be a very tough week of games for the Spartans, who will also play Pope Francis and Austin Prep before the week is out.
“This is going to be a huge week for us,” said Lee. “It doesn’t get much tougher than this in terms of competition, and we’re excited for it.”