MC Passes Early Test at Super 8

NORTH ANDOVER--All year long they’ve had a target on their collective back so big it can probably be seen from space. 

It comes with the territory.

Having a first line as good as any in recent memory and spending an entire season as the consensus No. 1 squad in Massachusetts can have a tendency to do that.

The Malden Catholic hockey team is no stranger to seeing its opponents’ “A” games, and that’s just what they got last night from Central Catholic in the opening round of the Super 8 Tournament before an SRO crowd of over 2,400 at Lawler Arena.

The Lancers (17-2-2) escaped with a 4-3 win, despite some shaky play in the defensive end. Junior Brendan Collier scored twice for MC, including the eventual game winner, while Ryan Fitzgerald and senior Garrett White also added goals. UNH-bound senior Mike Vecchione was credited with 3 assists, giving him a total of 73 points on the season, tying Catholic Memorial’s Mike Sylvia--who went on to win the national championship with BU in 1995--for the Catholic Conference single-season record.

For Central Catholic, it was Nick Leonard and Mike Kelleher who paced the attack, each collecting a goal and an assist, while freshman Alex Lester potted a goal as well.

MC will face Hingham on Tuesday in the next round of play. The Raiders fell to 17-6-1 and play fourth-seeded Weymouth in the next round of the round-robin style tournament, in Tuesday’s other matchup.

“I wasn’t really happy with our play in the defensive end of the ice,” said Malden Catholic head coach Chris Serino. “We gave up too many shots--way too many shots--and we skated by too many pucks. We didn’t utilize our speed ...it was a slow game, we’ve got to adjust. We were trying to make plays on soft ice you can’t make.”

MC outshot Central 27-24, a far cry from the usual dominance the Blue Blades display in that statistical category. The Raiders actually outshot Malden Catholic during the second period.

For Central Catholic coach Mike Jankowski, who saw his squad to a 3-1 victory over St. Mary’s of Lynn in a play-in game to qualify for the eight-team field, there wasn’t a lot more he could have asked for out of his players, despite the result not going their way.

“Every kid poured their heart and soul into this game,” he said. “They laid it all out there ... there was no quit in them. The whole game was like that. We just came back every time and battled through. It says a lot about the character of those kids in the locker room.

“I’m not happy with the numbers, it didn’t go the way we wanted it to, but I’m happy with the effort.”

Aside from their propensity for peppering opposing goaltenders, another tendency displayed by Serino’s Lancers this year is the ability to turn an otherwise close affair on its ear in the third period--their comeback win over Catholic Memorial on Jan. 11, featuring a six-goal eruption in the final frame, being just one example. It seemed they were about to do it again last night.

With the score deadlocked at two goals apiece heading into the third, BC-bound sophomore Fitzgerald and future BU Terrier Collier netted a quick-fire double salvo, scoring goals just 25 seconds apart, to put the Lancers ahead 4-2 with 10:03 left to play. 

The script seemed familiar; it looked as though the Lancers had the game firmly in hand, but Central Catholic wasn’t quite finished.

Leonard beat MC net minder Pat Young (21 saves) with 4:54 left in the game, cutting the deficit to 4-3 and giving Central a toehold to climb back into the contest.

The Raiders had their best opportunity to tie the score in the waning moments of the game, when several wild set-to’s near the Lancers goal nearly resulted in an equalizer. The first required a save from Young--perhaps the biggest of the many clutch stops made by the MC goalie last night--while only the final buzzer kept the second from crossing the line during the mad scramble that broke out as the clock wound down.

It appeared for a moment that the Raiders’ efforts may have yielded a miracle last-second goal, but the puck stayed out of the net and the Lancers held on.

“I told the referee: ‘I have the worst eyes in North America, and I could see that it didn’t go over the line from where I was,’” joked Serino, who is no stranger to Lawler Arena, having skippered the building’s usual tenants, Merrimack College, for seven seasons. “But you never know with one of those ... the puck squirts the wrong way, goes in the net, and there you go.”

While MC’s Young may have skated off the victor, Central Catholic’s all-conference goaltender Kyle Williams turned in a solid performance at the other end of the ice for the Raiders as well. Williams stopped 23 shots--most off the Hockey East-bound sticks of the Lancers’ top line--for the Merrimack Valley Conference/Dual County League co-champions. 

His steadfast performance was nothing new for Raiders’ fans.

“Every game he makes these big stops,” said Jankowski of his talented senior goaltender. “He just turns momentum and keeps us in every game. He’s a special kid, very underrated too. He’s gone under the radar, but he’s done his job all year long.”

Malden Catholic’s adjective-defying first line has now accounted for 77 goals and 205 points this year. As one would imagine, a team that gets so many pucks on the net, also puts quite a few wide of, or, as is the case with the Lancers, over the goal also.

“We have a tendency to shoot everything up,” said Serino of his team’s potent offense. “If we get 30 shots at the net, we probably miss the net with 20 more. We shoot them over.

“But we’ve been pretty successful,” he added. “It’s no like I can ask them to stop shooting.”