Sports
Headers and Rams Ready to Tangle For Division 3 North Title
Marblehead and Shawsheen meet for the third consecutive year Saturday night in Chelmsford in the the state hockey tournament.
Marblehead and Shawsheen hit the ice Saturday night in Chelmsford, the two teams hooking up in the playoffs for the third year in a row.
“Marblehead’s got a great team, a lot of quality kids on the team,” Shawsheen coach Chuck Baker said after his team eliminated Wayland in a shoot-out 3-2 Thursday night.
“It should be a great game for the fans, we know each other a bit, and I think it’ll be a great game,” Baker said.
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The Headers will have to contend with the Rams’ top line of Tom Price, Mike DiGiorgio and Joe Sodergren Saturday night. They’ll have to get pucks past senior goalie Ryan Maskell who kicked out 32 shots against Wayland and stopped all five Warrior shots in the shoot-out.
Sodergren and Digiorgio scored in regulation with Sodergren the only shooter finding the back of the net in the shoot-out. The Rams, the first seed in Division 3 North sport a 17-4-1 record heading into Saturday night’s game.
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The Headers and Rams met in the playoffs in 2009, the Rams winning a shoot-out 2-1 over Marblehead. Shawsheen beat Concord-Carlisle for the Division Three crown before losing to Shrewsbury 3-2 in the state final.
Marblehead ended Shawsheen’s season next year in the semifinals, winning 3-0. The Headers went on to beat Concord-Carlisle for the North title, before losing to Scituate in the state semifinals 3-2.
Ryan Dempsey is the hottest Header in these playoffs. The senior forward had a hat trick in a 5-3 win over Latin Academy and two goals in Thursday’s 5-1 win over Dracut. The Headers are scoring five goals a game, and goalie Tony Cuzner has kept his team from falling behind in the playoffs.
“They’re a very good team, they beat us down, really outworked us and kept us pinned in our zone,” Dracut coach Mike Marshall said after Thursday’s game. “That’s the best team we’ve played all year.”
“We played much better against Dracut than we did against Latin Academy,” Header coach Bob Jackson said. “The whole team played better on Thursday night, and we got scoring from all three lines, which is always a good sign.”
“It’s going to be a lot of fun Saturday night, there’ll be a great atmosphere up here (in Chelmsford).”
The winner of Saturday night’s game will play the winner of the South tournament later this month. The winner of the North/South semifinal will play the Central/West division winner for the state championship.
The puck drops at Chelmsford Forum at 5:40 p.m. For information on the arena or directions, check out www.fmcicesports.com/public/locations/chelmsford.
