Mount Girls Advance To Finals

The Mounties of Mount St. Charles Academy scored a pair of first-period goals and potted three more during the third to down the North Smithfield Lady Northmen, 5-1, and advance to the final round of the girls’ Division I tournament.

MSC swept the best-of-three series from the fifth-seeded Lady Northmen, capturing Friday’s victory on the heels of a 3-2 win Thursday.

Mount also defeated North Smithfield twice during the regular season, but when the Mounties and Lady Northmen met Thursday, March 10 at Adelard Arena for the first game of their semifinal series, North Smithfield’s Kayla Kiernan and Hannah Decelles struck quickly to give North Smithfield a two-goal lead.

MSC’s Senior captain Samantha Smith and junior forward Allison Shea negated the Mounties’ deficit with second-period goals, but neither offense had any success during the 15-minute third period or in either of the two seven-and-a-half minute overtime sessions.

North Smithfield’s freshman goaltender, Britney Evangelista, amassed 64 saves in Game 1, and MSC’s freshman goaltender, Sarah Erban, turned aside 35 shots, as well. Eventually, Smith scored in a shootout to secure the Mounties’ victory and end the lengthy contest.

“Despite their best intentions, I think we had a little bit more jump in the first period because of last night,” said MSC head coach Stephen Shea.

“They have a shorter bench than we do, and to play 60 minutes last night and come back less than 24 hours later, that’s tough.”

The Mounties applied pressure to the Lady Northmen throughout the first period Friday on the John W. Kennedy Jr. Ice Rink at the RI Sports Center, and Smith scored at 6:29 to establish a 1-0 lead for MSC.

The right-winger took a pass on the end-boards and skated out toward the left wing, turning below the face-off circle to fire a wrist shot past the glove-hand of Evangelista. The goal came with assists from sophomore defender Meredith Peppes and senior captain Erin Rouleau.

Two of MSC’s four senior captains hooked up again for the game-winning goal 2:50 later, as Smith took sophomore forward Alisha Sleboda’s feed into the left face-off circle and slid the pack across the slot to a streaking Rouleau.

“It was a beautiful back-hand pass that Smith slid over to Rouleau, and Rouleau popped it in the upper right-hand corner,” Shea said. “A right-handed shot coming in, she went over the girl’s left-handed catching glove. It was just a beautiful play.”

Keirnan scored for North Smithfield during the second period to halve the two-goal margin, but the Mounties regained control after intermission.

“I think there were bookend periods,” Shea said. “I think the first period and third period were mirror images of each other. We needed the third period just as much as we needed the first period because it was 2-1.”

Caitlin Shea, Lauren Levesque and senior captain BriAnna Narodowy notched third-period for goals for MSC, and Erban made 15 stops to clinch the Mounties’ third consecutive berth in the championship series.

MSC finished second in 2009 to St. Mary Academy-Bay View, but the Mounties downed the Bengals in 2010 to win Mount's fifth state crown.

Next week, the No. 1 Mounties and second-seeded Bengals will meet again at Providence College’s Schneider Arena.

“We’re really happy. We said to the girls, ‘We’re going to the big show,’ and that’s the biggest reaction I’ve gotten from the girls all year. They just lit up,” Shea said.