Mounties' Late Rally Stymies Hawks

The offensive fireworks were on display on the ice Friday night, as top seeded Mount Saint Charles matched up against second seeded Bishop Hendricken in the Division I boys hockey state championship at Providence College's Schneider Arena. The Mounties had won both regular season matchups and once again took the win in this best of three series, 5-4.

Mounties junior Michael Magerman scored off a rebound just two minutes into the game.

The Hawks kept fighting and began to apply pressure in Mount Saint Charles' zone.

Hendricken got on the scoreboard with just over eight minutes left in the first period. Junior Justin Finan hustled for the rebound and slid the puck into the back of the net, evening the score at 1 apiece.

The Hawks maintained pressure and looked to take the lead. Junior Robert Buehrer avoided a check and blasted home a shot to give Hendricken a 2-1 lead with just under a minute left in the period.

Early in the second period, Hendricken struck again. Sophomore David Mitchell faked a shot and fed teammate Paul Filippone who rifled it into the net.

However, the Mounties fought back and scored a goal two minutes later. Senior Steven Donahue ripped a shot from the blue line, trimming the deficit to 3-2.

The Hawks answered right back as Buehrer notched his second goal of the night on a breakaway, and Hendricken's cushion was two goals again.

Towards the end of the second period, the Mounties got a 5 on 3 power play opportunity and they capitalized on it. Junior Alexander Erban scored with about five and a half minutes left in the third period and the deficit was back to one goal, at 4-3.

"When we are in that dressing room and we are down, they know they are going to come back," Mounties coach Dave Belisle said.

In the third period, the Mounties dominated puck possession. By using slick passing and being aggressive they created many scoring chances.

Junior Derek Deschene tied the game at 4 apiece with a goal early in the third period.

The Mounties pressure was relentless in the third period, as they outshot Hendricken 14-6. With 1:51 remaining in the game, the Mounties would notch the game winning goal.

Captain Trevor Plante fired the initial shot and Magerman cleaned up the garbage, putting in the rebound. Mount hung on for the 5-4 victory and has a chance to clinch a state championship in tomorrow night's game 2.

Hendricken's coach, James Creamer, was pleased with the effort of his team. "I’m pretty happy with the effort and they gave it their best out there tonight," he said.

"Their speed hurt us in the first half of the game," Belisle said.

"We wanted to eliminate Hendricken’s two on one opportunities," he added, "The biggest adjustment we made was to make sure we always had a guy back."

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