Mt. Hope Hockey Falls to East Providence in Overtime

James Hall scored just 37 seconds into overtime to win the opening game for East Providence over , 5-4, in the RIIL Division Three best-of-three state hockey championship semifinals held at Portsmouth Abbey on Friday night.

In the climatic ending, D.J. Donohue fired a shot from the right point that was not cleared away quickly enough. Hall eventually pounced on the puck to follow up with the game-winner, his second tally of the night.

The series resumes tonight at Lynch Arena in Pawtucket starting at 8 p.m.

The second seed Mt. Hope squad dominated action most of the first period and most of the second period. Indeed, they would outshoot East Providence, 38-27 overall, including 18-10 in the second period.

But in a familiar pattern, the third seed Townies came on strong at the end of each period and capitalized on critical mistakes.

The aggressive Huskies scored first when hard-charging Chris Dugan scored on an assist by James Vaccaro.

With just eight seconds left in the period, James Hall tied the score after intercepting a pass.

Then a three-goal blitz in the first 6:15 of the second period propelled the Huskies to a 4-1 lead.

First there was a perfect pass from Eddy Botelho to Dugan 15 feet in front, who slid it under Townies goalie James Andrews.

Next came a quirky power-play goal by Scott MacGovern following a ricochet from behind the net, with assists going to Justin Correia and Dugan.

Botelho then scored the final goal for the Huskies to boost the lead to 4-1.

Then, reminiscent of the Townies three-goal, third-period comeback and eventual 4-3 win over the Huskies during the regular season, the rest of the scoring was all by East Providence. 

And it was swarming forechecking by Townies skaters that contributed to four successive goals, leading to the victory.

Peter Saunders scored his first goal late in the second period when he received a pass from James Hall on the right side and swiftly skated in to wrist a shot past Huskies goalie Matt Wilson to cut the deficit to 4-2.

Later in the final period, just 11 seconds after a tripping penalty was called on Mt. Hope, Saunders followed up with his second goal to close the gap to 4-3.  

Trevor Medeiros, the Townies second leading scorer, was hurt on that penalty, skated off the ice, but had to leave the game after sustaining a shoulder injury. (It will be decided at game time if he can play tonight.)

With 1:42 left, the Townies finally drew even when Josh Rocha from the right side intercepted a pass and two seconds later drilled a shot from 10 feet out.

“We escaped with this win,” admitted Townies head coach Gregg Amore. “We had a poor first period. But we just dug deep and continued to grind, grind, grind. Our goalie made some big plays when he had to and was rock-solid on a breakaway and a 2-on-1 play. I think the difference might have been on our third line that we used regularly and kept our other two lines fresh.”

“Peter Saunders had the best game of his career tonight,” Amore added. "It wasn''t just his two goals, it was his all-around play."

“It was a tough game,” said Huskies head coach Matt Grieve. “We skated hard and played very well, but they had a little bit of luck on their side.”

Andrews made 34 saves for the Townies while Huskies netminder Matt Wilson had 22.

“It’ll be a tough series,” said Amore. “They can score quickly, but we have to start our next game better than we did tonight.”