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Slow start dooms Masconomet in quarterfinal playoff loss

Sunday, March, 02 By Matt Jenkins
Staff writer

SALEM | It's impossible to turn the impressive depth of a hockey team into a weakness, but Tewksbury wasted little time in neutralizing Masconomet's biggest strength yesterday afternoon at Salem State College's Rockett Arena.

Scoring early and often forced Masco to shorten its bench, which played right into the hands of Tewksbury in an 8-2 victory in a Division 2 North quarterfinal contest.

Tewksbury's Mike Taylor scored just 1:15 into the game, setting off a seven-goal run that lasted until the first minute of the third period, and the Redmen had the game well in hand at 4-0 before the first horn had sounded.

Masco's attack, which usually consists of four lines and five defensemen rotations, had to be altered because of the huge early hole.

"Now you're scrapping and trying to find goals," Masco coach Bill Blackwell said. "You have to rely on the guys who score the goals for you. Obviously they have to be on the ice more. It takes away from what we're trying to do. We try to keep rolling our lines and keep guys fresh."

Each Tewksbury goal seemed to sink Masco's spirits, while energizing the Redmen.

Taylor's tally from Marc Legere to start the game was just the beginning of a strong performance that Tewksbury has come to expect.

"These boys, they're ready," Tewksbury coach Derek Doherty said. "They're ready every day; you can see it in their eyes. They want to win. They jumped on the ice today, spread the ice out well, and away they went. There was no stopping them."

The Redmen kept the heat on throughout the first period. Chris Tully's goal at 9:02 gave Tewksbury (16-3-3) a 2-0 advantage and keeping the puck in Masco's end resulted in two more goals in the final three minutes of the period. Paul Tosto slid a pass to Scott Capraro, who scored from the right slot at 12:46, and senior defenseman Kevin Lyons buried a slapshot from the point at 14:38.

The four-goal deficit left Blackwell wondering how the Chieftains could come out flat in a state tournament game, and how they could get back into the game.

"You can't flip a switch in the first period," Blackwell said. "You've got to get on the bus ready to go. It's something we've tried to work on with these young guys. We're playing a lot of young guys and hopefully a lesson will be learned."

Even though Masco started to play better in the second period, Tewksbury dumped two more goals on the Chieftains.

Tosto had a pair of pretty assists in the second. The first was a sharp tape-to-tape job that came from behind the net, setting up Tully for his second goal, and the second was a beautiful wrap-around past a Masco defenseman for Tom Macleod's only goal.

"Tosto had some eyes behind his head today," Doherty said. "He made some passes that were 'Whoa.' You know?" When Masco trailed 5-0 in the second it had a 5-on-3 advantage, but couldn't do anything with it.

Taylor scored again, this time just 52 seconds into the third period in a short-handed situation to push Tewksbury's lead to 7-0.

Masco (14-8) finally got on the board when junior forward Stephen Surrette knocked home a loose puck at 4:42 of the third, and Brendan Dahlgren finished a pass from Anthony DiBenedetto at 7:36 to cut Tewksbury's lead to 7-2.

Taylor completed his hat trick with an unassisted goal late in the game.

"I'm real proud of the way the seniors turned things around here," Blackwell said of the eight players who will be moving on.

"We've had 30 wins over the last two years, including the state tournament. We're going to miss the seniors. They'll be hard to replace, not just ability-wise, but in the locker room. Hopefully, the younger guys will learn the lesson and pick up what those seniors started."