St. John’s Prep’s Jeff Cowles was like a lot of little kids who grew up dreaming about scoring game-winning goals in big games. With a trip to TD Garden on the line, Cowles made his dream come true last night and shot his team into the Super Eight championship game.
Mitch Shaheen backhanded a pass across the crease to Cowles at the far post, who buried his chance at 1:12 of overtime to send the fifth-seeded Eagles to the Division 1A final with a 4-3 victory over previously unbeaten top-seed Springfield Cathedral last night at Tsongas Center.
“It was Mitch or Seth (Murray) that came down, they were both right next to each other and one of them drove it into the corner,” Shaheen said of his winning goal. “I just went back door, drove to the net and I was just lucky enough that the puck slipped through and popped out to me for a wide-open net backdoor.
“I can’t even explain it. It’s a moment I’ve been dreaming about since I was a little kid, scoring an overtime winning goal.”
The Eagles have adopted a slower, smarter and more disciplined style of hockey. It helped them vanquish BC High in the first round and kept the explosive Panthers (22-1-2) off their game last night.
Prep goalie Kyle Martin also played a critical role, finishing with 33 saves, including 13 in the third period. But trailing 3-2, Cathedral beat Martin when Johnny Leonard buried his second goal of the night, ultimately forcing the overtime.
The Prep capitalized on the chances they did get early on, as Sam Stone converted a perfect backhanded feed from Shaheen at 12:56 of the first period. The Eagles added a shorthanded goal at 2:02 of the second as Tyler Scearbo created a turnover and let loose with a hard wrist shot from the slot to make it a 2-0 game.
Cathedral responded almost immediately as Bryce Peritz unleashed a cannon from the upper right wing circle 20 seconds later. The Panthers tied the game on another power play when Leonard put back a rebound at 8:23, but the Prep regained the lead when Josh Cole fired through a screen with 1:35 left in the second.
Malden Catholic 6, Austin Prep 3 — Right winger Jack Adams scored twice, his first standing as the game-winner as the second-seeded Lancers (19-1-2) rallied to beat the No. 3 seed Cougars (21-3-1) in the second Super Eight semifinal at Tsongas Center.
Cam Walter gave MC a 2-1 lead at 2:04 of the second, but Mike Egan’s scored his second of the night then set up Eric MacAdams 35 seconds later to give AP a 3-2 lead at 3:31 of the second. But MC held the lead by the end of the frame, through tallies from Matthew Filipe at 9:44 and Adams at 12:10.
“It was calm on the bench,” MC coach John McLean said. “We made a couple changes that we needed to, told the guys it was one shift at a time and one goal at a time. Those things happen, you have to bear down and we did that.”
The Lancers’ first line of Austin Goldstein, Filipe and Jake Witkowski combined for eight points, posting two goals in the third to put things away. Kyle Casey finished with 16 saves, while AP counterpart Dylan Regan had 22 stops.
The Lancers will look for the fifth consecutive Super Eight title on Sunday at TD Garden (time TBA) against the Prep, a Catholic Conference rival they went 1-0-1 against in the regular season.
Watertown 3, Norwell 0 — Anthony Busconi had another stellar game in goal, stopping all 30 shots he faced as the Red Raiders (15-3-7) continued their Cinderella run by beating the Clippers (21-2-3) in a Div. 3 state semifinal at Gallo Arena.
Watertown, which is expected to not dress a varsity team next winter due to lack of numbers, now advances to play the winner of tonight’s North Middlesex-Agawam semifinal in the state title game on Sunday at TD Garden (time TBA).
Despite Norwell owning a 20-8 shot advantage through two periods, the Red Raiders held a 2-0 lead thanks to Tyler Gardiner and Michael Giordano. Gardiner, sent in by Giordano, gave Watertown a 1-0 lead at 4:27 of the second, ripping a shot over the glove of Norwell sophomore netminder Sean McGowan. Gardiner returned the favor to Giordano, who doubled the lead with 2:58 left in the second.
Nine seconds after Giordano’s goal, Norwell thought it had scored, but a scrum in front of the net knocked the net off its moorings, and officials waved off the goal. Gardiner scored into an empty net in the final two minutes to close things out.
Richard Murray and Brendan Connelly contributed to this report.