2/28/04
Thayer Thumps St. Seb’s; Wins Keller
Chestnut Hill, Mass. –Diminutive freshman center Brian Gibbons had a four-point afternoon (1g,3a) and senior goalie Dan Beauregard kicked out 30 shots to lead Thayer to a 7-2 win over St. Sebastian’s in the annual Arthur Valicenti Cup at BC’s Conte Forum this afternoon.
The win clinched the Keller Division of the ISL for Thayer, who will also be heading to the prep quarterfinals on Wednesday.
The game was close early on, with Thayer scoring the only goal of the first period as freshman wing Max Gratchev, all alone at one corner of the crease, banged home a puck that emerged from a jammed-up scrum at the opposite corner. The goal, a power play goal, came at the 15:52 mark, and came right after St. Seb’s rang one off the crossbar at the opposite end.
In the final seconds of the period, Beauregard made a nice save to hold Thayer’s lead.
In the second period, Thayer, on the power play, went up 2-0 when Gratchev fed Gibbons who took it into the St. Seb’s end, then made a nice backhanded pass to Ryan Joyce below the hash marks. Joyce buried it at the 6:00 mark.
Thayer went up 3-0 when junior wing Matt Harrington scored on a wraparound at 11:51.
St. Seb’s got on the board at 12:59 when Doug Rogers snapped one top corner past Beauregard to cut the Thayer lead to 3-1.
St. Seb’s had the edge in shots in the second, 16-9.
In the third, things fell apart for the Arrows, who took a bunch of penalties and had difficulty killing them. St. Seb’s defensemen allowed their opponents to score three goals in which Tiger forwards skated virtually unimpeded out of the corner. Greg Collins did it, Gibbons did it, Harrington did it. Pierce Norton, also scored, banging home the rebound of an Anthony Aiello shot from the right point.
With 55 seconds left in the game, Todd Davis scored for St. Sebastian’s, but it was, of course, way too little, and way too late.
Afterward, Thayer head coach Larry Rooney credited his goalie. “Beauregard was the difference in the first period and much of the second. We weren’t really playing that smart defensively in front of him. Eventually, though, we started to put the puck away.”
Asked if he though at the beginning of the season that his team would emerge as the Keller champs, Rooney said that, “On paper I knew we were skilled. I figured we could finish in the top half of the division, maybe the top 2-3 spots. We surprised people, I think. Belmont Hill surprised people, too.”
As for the playoffs, Rooney said, “I haven’t really thought about it. We just have to be ready.”
Notes: In other games... Host Hotchkiss scored three third-period goals to upset #3 Taft, 4-1.... #7 Andover, playing at home, blanked archrival Exeter, 2-0... #8 Belmont Hill topped BB&N; though we don't even have the final score on this one... Nobles notched four second-period goals to top Milton, 6-4... #4 Salisbury scored six goals in the second period en route to an 8-2 win over host Canterbury.... #5 Tabor blanked host NMH, 4-0; no further details are available... Pomfret got two goals from Patrick Welch and 25 saves from Trevor Pieri in a 4-1 win at KUA... In Ashburnham, Mass., a Danny Rossman goal with 3:15 left in regulation lifted #1-ranked Cushing to a 4-3 win over Holderness.... #10 Deerfield topped visiting Westminster, 7-1; no further details are available.... #2 Avon topped Loomis, 4-1; no further detials are available... Check game results above for box scores of many of these games.
