Sports
Headers On Their Way To Semifinals
Headers roll over Shawsheen, 6-2 Saturday night, will meet Westwood/Pembroke winner Tuesday night at Harvard.
There is nothing to do but relax and wait for the results of the Pembroke-Westwood game Sunday night for the Marblehead High School hockey team.
The Headers ripped the top-seeded Shawsheen Rams 6-2 Saturday night in Chelmsford to punch their ticket into the state semifinals.
The hockey team returns to practice on Monday and will know when they hit the ice who they’ll be up against Tuesday night at Harvard’s Bright Center at 7:30 p.m.
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“We scheduled a lot of tough opponents to get ready for a team like Shawsheen in the playoffs,” Marblehead coach Bob Jackson said. “Credit the coaching staff, Tom Colby, Mark Tarmey and Patrick Flynn for devising a game plan that, when we work at it, makes us successful.”
Marblehead entered Saturday night’s game as the second seed in the Division Three North tournament, knocking off Latin Academy and Dracut to get to the championship game.
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The Marblehead coaching staff challenged the team to come up with six goals Saturday night, and the players did just that.
Marblehead got six tallies from six different players, one in the first, two in the second and three in the third to win going away. The Headers outshot the home team, 44-16, after falling behind 2-1.
“We have a lot of players we can count on for scoring,” Jackson said after the game. “So teams really can’t zero in on one line, we get goals from all of our lines.”
“It helps that we can count on ten seniors for leadership as well,” Jackson said.
Two seniors got Marblehead on the board first, when Chris McLeod set up Austin Haley for his second goal of the playoffs at 2:56 of the first.
Shawsheen actually had the edge in play for the first three minutes of the game, and even led 2-1, before Marblehead scored five in a row.
With Joe Sodergren in the box for tripping, Jake Kulevich made it 2-2 with 53.7 seconds left in the first period. Hunter Graves made a sweet pass from behind the net to Kulevich to who buried a shot by Shawsheen net minder Ryan Maskell's right side.
Ryan Dempsey continued his torrid scoring pace in the playoffs, putting the Headers up for good one minute into the second period. The senior captain’s sixth goal of the post-season was set up by Hunter Graves and Alex Whitmore, and Marblehead never looked back.
Tyler Bates, Ben Koopman and Chris McLeod scored goals in the third period, Hunter Whitmore, Dempsey and Kulevich had assists.
Marblehead scored three goals in the third and allowed only four Shawsheen shots on goalie Tony Kuzner.
With the back-to-back Division Three North crowns, the seniors on the team have now won three titles in four years.
“The first one was great, the second one was even better and this one was awesome, but we want to keep going,” senior Ryan Dempsey said after the game.
“I really can’t begin to tell you how proud I am of this team,” coach Bob Jackson said. “We really challenged these guys after the Dracut game to pick it up a few notches, and they certainly responded to that challenge.
Marblehead will face off against the winner of the Westwood-Pembroke game on Tuesday night at 7:30 p.m. at Harvard’s Bright Arena.
