Pope Francis goes the distance to blank BC High

BOURNE — The BC High offense had a kitchen sink mentality on the ice against Pope Francis with everything other than goals being tossed in the mix.

In a rematch of last season’s Super Eight final, Pope Francis enacted some revenge on two-time defending Super Eight Champion, BC High, in a 4-0 win over the Eagles at Gallo Ice Arena to advance to the finals of the winner’s bracket.

The No. 3 Cardinals advance to face the winner of top-seeded Arlington and No. 4 St. John’s Prep next Saturday at Loring Arena for the right to move to the Division 1A final at TD Garden.

Pope Francis (15-4-2) was led by junior goaltender Ben Zaranek with 29 saves in the shutout while Evan Phaneuf provided the first two tallies in a crucial Super Eight contest.

“The way the tournament is designed this is just such a huge game to be able to win your first two and stay in the winners bracket,” said Cardinals head coach Brian Foley. “Now we are in position to have a week of rest and this was a pivotal game for our chances to get back to the Garden.”

The Eagles carried the offensive play and held a 29-16 shot advantage in the end. But Phaneuf scored his first goal on only the second Cardinals’ shot attempt on a beautiful cross-crease push pass from Connor Wodecki at 4:33 of the first. Phaneuf wristed a one-timer inside the left post before BC goaltender Tom Keisewetter had a chance.

But the damage came in the final minutes of the second period for the Cardinals. Phaneuf was slitting off the right post and hammered home a rebound off the stick of Josh Iby at 13:38 of the period. Less then a minute later, Jack Moltenbrey closed out the period with his lone tally off another juicy rebound out front for the 3-0 lead at the second intermission.

Ryan Leonard scored the fourth insurance goal for Pope Francis midway through the third period.

No 2 BC High (14-4-4) needs to regroup as the 1-loss bracket presents a longer road to the finals. The Eagles will face Framingham on Wednesday in Stoneham in a win-or-go-home game.

“It was just one of those games honestly, sometimes no matter what you do, the outcome is just not where you are going to want it to be,” said BC High head coach John Flaherty. “We played a good hockey game. I think our guys competed hard. I think we did the things we needed to do to win a hockey game, but just didn’t get the benefit of the bounces.”

Zaranek is creating something special in net for the Cardinals as he has an 8-1 record in Super Eight games, with his only loss being last season in the final as a sophomore to BC High. Also, Zaranek can hang his stick on the fact that this was the first shutout against the Eagles this season.

“We have a lot of good players but when you play a team like BC High (Zaranek) has to be our best and he was in this one,” added Foley. “(BC High) had a lot of push there in the second (period) and even in the first and (Zaranek) held us together. I really liked our play in the third period, I thought we played smart with the lead, and got that fourth goal to give us a little bit of breathing room.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2I8Avca