Bedford scores late to beat Kingswood in D2 boys hockey quarterfinals
MANCHESTER – The season was on the verge of unraveling for the Bedford High School boys ice hockey team.
The No. 3 Bulldogs had been clinging to a one-goal lead throughout the third period of Saturday’s Division II quarterfinal game against No. 6 Kingswood, but with 52 seconds left, the Knights tied the game at 2.
Bedford hadn’t panicked all game, not when it trailed for most of the first two periods, and it didn’t after the goal.
“We told the kids from the start not to panic and they held their composure until the very end,” Bedford coach Marty Myers said. “The heads didn’t go down and we knew we were still in the game. We didn’t want to go into overtime.”
The Bulldogs didn’t have to. Chris O’Hara knocked a loose puck up over goalie Shawn Goggin with 25 seconds left in the game to give the Bulldogs a 3-2 win at St. Anselm College’s Sullivan Arena.
The win puts Bedford into the semifinals for the second straight year – the Bulldogs won the division title last year – where it will face either No. 2 Spaulding or No. 7 Oyster River at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday. Those two teams were scheduled to play Saturday night.
O’Hara had two goals for the Bulldogs (14-3-2), including a goal at the end of the second period that looked like it would be the game winner. Kurt Mitchell had a goal and assisted on both of O’Hara’s scores while Tyler Murry and Michael Dee each had a helper.
Bedford goalie Stevan Tempesta faced just six shots, one of which he never saw. After Kingswood pulled Goggin (18 saves) with 1:04 to play, defenseman Owen Richard fired a shot from the blue line that Tempesta didn’t see until it was by him, tying the game 2-2.
CJ Sirrell also scored for the Knights (11-8), putting Kingswood on top 1-0 just 2:15 into the game. It took the Bulldogs almost two full periods to put one past Goggin.
The Kingswood goalie had been superb until he tried to play the puck with 4:52 left in the second. O’Hara and Kingswood’s Matthew Fuller barreled into the goalie, shaking him up.
“That took him off his focus and after that, we started moving,” O’Hara said.
Mitchell tied the game with 1:10 left in the period, and O’Hara made it 2-1 just 11 seconds before the second intermission from behind the net.
The senior tried to bank the puck in off the back of Goggin’s leg. His first attempt came back to him and his second try found its way into the net.
“They tell us to throw the puck at the net anywhere you can,” he said. “It worked against Goffstown (earlier in the season), so I figured I’d try it in this game. I threw the first one and he kind of stopped it. I knew there wasn’t a lot of time left, so I threw it back. I threw it right at his skate and I think it deflected up off his skate and into the net.”
And after the Knights tied the game, O’Hara was in the right place at the right time.
“As soon as they scored, I looked at my linemates and we knew we had to get one in the next 10 or 20 seconds,” he said. “We had to do it right now.
“The defense made a play up to a forward. We skated it all the way down and centered it across. We’ve been working on that play. I knew I had to get my stick on it and I knew if I did, it would be good.”
Bedford played to a 1-1 tie against Oyster River on Jan. 9 and lost to Spaulding 4-3 on Feb. 12. The Bulldogs will face the winner of that quarterfinal at 5:30 p.m. at the Rinks at Exeter on Wednesday.
“Either one is going to be just as difficult as the other,” Myers said. “I have no preference on which to play because they’re both going to be tough.”
