RallyNorth.net

Wed, Mar 05, 2008 07:30 PM @ Neutral Location

Team	1	2	3	Final
Playoff Game Division 2 North -Semifinals
Peabody	0	1	0	1
Wilmington	2	0	2	4

Slow start handcuffs Peabody in North semifinal loss

Wednesday, March, 05 By Jean DePlacido
Correspondent

SALEM | When you're in the state hockey tourney, you have to be on the attack from the beginning. Peabody didn't do that last night and it proved fatal to its chances in the Division 2 North semifinals.

A slow start proved too tough for Peabody to overcome against a very strong defensive minded Wilmington team and red hot goalie Michael Cabral, who turned aside 36 Peabody shots in a 4-1 Wildcats victory before a packed house at Salem State's Rockett Arena.

After being outplayed in the first period, the Tanners found themselves trailing, 2-0, and then dominated play in the middle period, but could only get one shot past Cabral, the Cape Ann League's all-league netminder.

"We came out a little flat at the beginning and had a tough first period," said Tanner coach Mark Leonard, whose team finished 17-6. That Wilmington goalie was tremendous. They were a great team (No. 1 seed), and their size bothered us. They are so big and strong | even the small kids are strong and hard to ride off the puck.

"In the second period we started to take over the game a bit. Once we got our legs going we were flying, but that goalie came up with some big saves. We just couldn't get it and their defense prevented us from going to the front of the net. There were rebounds, but we couldn't get to them."

The Wildcats scored on their first power play when Ernie Mello beat Peabody goalie Jonathan Camara with two seconds left on the penalty to A.J. Parker. Camara had stopped a shot by Mike Enwright and appeared to have the puck tied up when Mello jammed it home. They added a goal midway through the period to take a 2-0 lead when Jared Ravagni made a nifty move to get around a Peabody defenseman and fired a low shot that Camara got a piece of, but the puck dribbled over the line.

"Before the game the ref told us that there would be a whistle if anybody was near the goalie in that situation," said Leonard. "He whacked at it three times and finally put it in with no whistle, but I'm not going to blame the officials. I think the key to the game was the second period when we couldn't tie it up. Even then, I had a good feeling that we would do it in the third."

The Tanners came out energized in the middle period and dominated, outshooting the Wildcats, 12-6. Junior sniper Elijah Cohen set the tone with a blast that Cabral saved just over a minute into the period. Cohen made a great centering pass to linemate James Noftle in the slot a couple of minutes later, but Cabral made a terrific stop.

Noftle set up Matt Rodgers for a one-timer to put Peabody on the board at 6:59 of the middle period to close the gap to 2-1. The Tanners kept applying pressure, but Cabral denied Chris Lavoie on a shorthanded breakaway bid and seconds later made another save on Zack Brown, who was just out of the penalty box.

"That goalie is one of the best in the state and he didn't give us much," said Cohen. "Coach Leonard told us he was tough up top, so we tried to keep the puck low and go in for rebounds. We kept trying but our shots weren't going in tonight."

Senior captain Pat Yeo had a strong two-way performance and kept trying to get the puck on the net.

"My main focus was to get it to the net because the goalie gave up rebounds," said Yeo. "I kept trying to get it down low for our forwards so they could bang it in, but Wilmington's defense was tough. Unfortunately, they stopped our speed."

Peabody had a 37-28 shot advantage and kept the pressure on in the third period until two giveaways resulted in Wildcat goals to wrap it up. First line center Eric Siegel stole the puck behind the Tanner net, wheeled around and picked a spot in the upper corner to make it a 3-1 game at 6:22.

After Peabody was unable to capitalize on a 30 second two-man advantage (0-5 on the power play), Siegel sealed the win with a shorthanded empty net goal after stealing the puck in the Tanner end with 48 seconds remaining.

"We made it to the final eight in our division and had 17 wins," said Leonard. "I'm so proud of these seniors. It's a special group."

Additional stories:

• Hot goalie cools off Peabody's playoff dreams