BOSTON — It was not the ending Tewksbury High had planned.
The plan was to win its second state championship in three years, but that came to a sudden stop when No. 11 seed Boston Latin scored three goals in a 2 minute and 55 second stretch – starting with 4 minutes and 55 seconds remaining in the third period – to claim a surprising 4-2 victory over the No. 1 seed Redmen late Sunday night at the TD Garden.
The Division 2 championship game, scheduled to start at 7:30 p.m., didn’t begin until 9:37 and ended 90 minutes later, leaving the Redmen devastated.
“I think if that puck that was at the goal line was hit in, it’s game over and we’re not sad right now,” said Redmen head coach Derek Doherty. “Right after that, it was the start of their four minutes of them rolling and us not. I thought the kids played hard, they played hard. It’s just unfortunate.”
Doherty was talking about an almost goal by Tewksbury that would have given the Redmen a 3-1 lead in the third period.
Tewksbury had beaten its Merrimack Valley Conference/Dual County League Division 2 league rivals twice during the regular season by 5-1 and 5-2 scores.
“They definitely clogged the middle of the ice for sure, especially in the defensive zone. It was tough for us to get pucks to the net. They definitely did a good job of trying to shut down our first line. We did have our chances, but in the end, they had a great four-minute (span) and they won the game,” said Doherty.
Tewksbury (21-4-0) led 2-1 and with under six minutes left in the game, Tyler Bourgea went through two defensemen and his shot went off goalie Oliver Murphy and rolled through the crease untouched for several seconds. Two Tewksbury sticks took a swipe at it, but missed.
Forty seconds later, Boston Latin (17-8-0) tied the game up.
A minute and six seconds later came the game winner.
A minute and forty-nine seconds later was the insurance goal.
“All year we have been a third-period team,” said Boston Latin head coach Frank Woods. “We have played in a lot of close games. We are just comfortable playing in those close games. We needed to be close with these guys in the third period, otherwise we had no chance. They could have knocked us out in the first period and the game would have been over. It’s a powerful team. We were able to hang around and stay with it. We just needed a bounce and we got that going (with five minutes left in the game).”
Tewksbury took a 1-0 lead just 3 minutes and 1 second into the first period. Jeremy Insogna quickly passed the puck to his left where Matt Cooke took a quick shot to the far side. Neither team had any good scoring chances the rest of the way, both having a power play chance.
Cooke scored his 26th goal of the season and second in the game just 2 minutes and 4 seconds into the second period. On a faceoff to the right of Boston Latin goalie Oliver Murphy, Insogna pushed the puck to his right, and Cooke scooped it up, circled to his right, before letting go a wrist shot over the glove hand to make it 2-0.
Boston Latin was able to cut the deficit in half with 6 minutes and 24 seconds left in the second period. A Tewksbury defenseman had the puck in the right corner and misfired trying to make a pass. The puck landed on the stick of Tristan Speiss, who put a quick wrist shot, which was kicked out by the right pad of goalie David Karlberg, but Ryan McHugh came in off the opposite post to drive home the rebound for his fourth goal of the season to make it a 2-1 game.
The stage was set for Latin’s strong third period, with three goals scored in a 2:55 span. William Cunniffe evened the game by redirecting a shot from Ryan McHugh with 4:55 remaining, followed by goals from Aidan Fitzpatrick and Matt Carrara.
Doherty said, “I’m proud of the kids. They worked hard all year. It’s so hard to get here. We were fortunate enough to do it this year and then two years ago.”
