St. Mary's boys hockey solves Williams LYNN — After one period Wednesday night, St. Mary's had peppered Archbishop Williams goalie Joe Vinay with 11 shots while the Spartans' Bailey MacBurnie faced only three.
But the only puck that went past either goalie came on a power play, with Williams captain Sean LeBlanc doing the honors.
"But," said Spartan coach Mark Lee, "just as (we've) been doing all year, we didn't panic."
St. Mary's scored three unanswered goals in the second period and ended up winning, 4-2, to inch the Spartans closer to pretty much clinching a spot in the Super 8 tournament next month.
"I continue to be proud of these guys," said Lee. "We played a great second period, and fought off a four-minute minor to one of our guys, and that gave us a lot of momentum. It really gave us a spark."
The penalty, on Cam O'Neill, came after Nikko Markham had tied the game at 1-1 5:06 into the second on the power play. St. Mary's patiently rotated the puck until it got to Markham at the left point, and he blasted one home for the goal.
The Spartans killed off the penalty, and shortly after it expired, Tommy Braswell scored right off a faceoff after Williams was whistled for a penalty. That made the score 2-1.
At 11:14 of the period, Brendan Mageary's goal made it 3-1. Mageary collected a nifty drop pass from Jordan Manthorne, and crept up the left side until he let loose on Vinay.
Things got a little bit dicey in the third period when LeBlanc scored again for Williams after just 1:27 had ticked off the clock, thanks to another Spartan penalty. But Bobby Mullins got that back at 8:57 on a beautiful solo effort. Mullins skated from center ice into the Williams zone, and went around a couple of defenders until he took a bad-angle shot off Vinay's pads and into the net.
St. Mary's, 17-1-2, has a tough windup to the regular season. Saturday, the Spartans play Division 1 champion Marshfield, and they close the season out Wednesday against Weymouth.
