CHELMSFORD — Pentucket wondered if it would even field a team this winter because it didn’t have a goalie.
But there the Sachems were Tuesday night pulling out miraculous last-second win in the playoff opener. Yes, one second.
After never leading all game, Pentucket scored twice in the last 30 seconds to stun Lincoln-Sudbury 5-4 in the first round of the Division 2 North playoffs. Cam Martin scored the winner with one second on the clock moments after Nate McCarthy tied the game on a tremendous individual effort.
“They took the timeout and we were down 4-3,” said Pentucket coach Mark Morreale. “I don’t know, these kids are just so resilient. I just told them that there’s more left, there’s another special moment left in us. We went down and scored to tie it up, and I knew at that point that we had a chance.
“I looked at the clock with eight seconds left,” Morreale continued. “The place was so loud, I can’t yell to him how much time he had. He got the shot off and I knew there was a second and a half or two.”
Before that, it was a battle for the Sachems to even earn possession.
It was just over a minute in when Lincoln-Sudbury took the lead. Charlie Desmarais didn’t have enough on his shot from the point, but it skipped along the ice three times before deflecting its way in for a 1-0 lead.
Pentucket’s Hazen Pike dished to Nate McCarthy early in the second period, who sniped the top corner from the point to tie it 1-1.
The Warriors weren’t a team to easily go away. Right off a faceoff, Angelo Venuto fired it in to retake a 2-1 lead. A few plays later, Pike was found along charging towards the net, and his breakaway tally knotted it back up.
Following a scrum around the Pentucket net, two players were sent to the box, and seemed to give the Warriors energy. In an odd man rush up ice, Venuto took a pass and forced it in while charging.
The Sachems earned a power play early in the third, and Cam Martin tapped in a rebound to tie it up again, 3-3. But, like before, the Warriors surged back. Desmarais scored for the second time on a failed zone exit, taking the puck on a pass from the blueline and backhanding in a shot from the slot.
Pentucket had two late power plays with a chance to tie it again. The first came with 3:38 to go in the game, and while the Sachems had chances, they struggled to keep the puck in.
The second came with 1:26 to go in regulation. McCarthy won the puck and shielded it from danger and flipped it on his backhand to tie it 4-4 with 27 seconds left in the game.
The game winner came just 26 seconds later. After the Warriors tested senior goalie Connor Melone 926 saves), Martin was found in the neutral zone where he booked it up ice to have one final chance and win the game.
Melone, who is new to the position, came up big again.
“He played awesome,” said Morreale. “You could tell he was fighting the puck a little bit at the end, but he came up with some huge ones and kept as in the game, especially at the end. He came up huge. I’m so happy, I’m so glad he decided to play for us.”
The Sachems advance to play the winner of the late Stoneham-Tewksbury game. That quarterfinal game will be in Woburn on Friday (time TBA).
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