Bishop Guertin boys hockey dominates in win over Pinkerton

TYNGSBOROUGH, Mass. - The Bishop Guertin High School boys hockey team has been trying to put together a complete game for most of the season.

Against Pinkerton Academy on Wednesday night, Cardinals coach Gary Bishop felt like his team finally did.

Bishop Guertin scored three goals in the final 5:26 of the second period to take control of the game and cruised to a 6-0 win over the Astros at Skate 3.

It was the fourth shutout of the season for the Cardinals and the fifth time in six games they've scored five goals or more. But perhaps more importantly, Bishop Guertin took just five penalties, two in the first two periods, when the game was still in the balance.

"This is the first time we've put 45 minutes together," Bishop said. "We played two real good periods against Londonderry (on Monday), and then in the third, we took seven penalties. I can't say that was good hockey. (Wednesday) we played good hockey."

Bishop Guertin got a big game from Ben Peterson, who had two goals in the final 4:05 of the second to give the Cardinals a 4-0 lead, and also added an assist.

"This is the best game he's played all year," Bishop said of Peterson. "He's had nagging injuries all year long, a shoulder, a wrist, all year. He's not a big kid, so he can't play through those things."

Cam Fagan, Chase Blazak, Liam Nye and Jared Zeichick also had a goal each while Jacob Rodrigue had three assists. The Cardinals (11-4-2) also made it an easy night for goalie Jacob Perrin, who had to make just 10 saves.

Pinkerton (11-5-1) got a strong effort from goalie Dakota Robinson, who made 32 saves, including several spectacular ones that kept the Astros in the game early.

"He made some incredible saves," Pinkerton coach Sam Littlefield said. "He gave up a few rebounds here and there, but he made some incredible saves. He's been a great goaltender all year and kept us in a lot of games."

But Robinson gave up some big rebounds, and Bishop implored his team to take advantage of them.

"We told them you've got to move your feet and get a lot of traffic in front of the goaltender," the coach said. "Make sure you get screens and just keep skating back and forth.

"I think that helped, we got a couple goals off that situation. We talked about (rebounds) after the first shot that gets kicked out straight. I looked up and down the bench. Follow your shot to the net, even if you're not the shooter."

That paid off on the Cardinals' first two goals, as traffic in front of the net kept Robinson from seeing Fagan's shot from out in front. That made it 1-0 Bishop Guertin with 1:26 left in the first.

After Bishop Guertin had several chances early in the second period, Blazak buried a rebound of a shot by Doug Barker on the power play to give the Cardinals a 2-0 lead with 5:26 to go in the second. Peterson tallied his first goal just 1:21 later to make it 3-0, and then added another with 8.4 seconds left in the period.

The Cardinals got a bounce in the third, when a shot by Nye bounced in and out of the glove of Robinson and plopped into the goal to make it 5-0. Zeichick finished off the scoring with a power play goal with 39.8 seconds to play.

The two teams could end up facing each other in the quarterfinals, as Bishop Guertin is fourth in the Division I standings and Pinkerton is fifth. The Cardinals play at Concord to finish out the regular season, while the Astros host Manchester Central.