Cardinals shut out Panthers

NASHUA - The Bishop Guertin High School boys hockey team got two goals and an assist from Thomas Newton in a 6-0 win over Nashua South in a Division I game at Conway Arena on Saturday.

Brian Bottari and Zachary Coyle had a goal and an assist each for the Cardinals (2-0) while Aaron Choi had two assists and Ryan White and Andrew Crespo also scored.

South's Bradley Radin made 52 saves in goal, while Bishop Guertin's Andrew Pearson made just nine.

"For the first two periods, I thought it was a good up-and-down game and then they tired out," Bishop Guertin coach Gary Bishop said. "We’re running four lines to their two lines and by the end of the game, it’s really sloppy. It got to the point where we would cycle down in low and it would stay down there for an entire shift."

Panthers' coach Dan Belliveau knew his team was in for a challenge and the coaching staff expressed that to the players.

"These kids knew right away that they were going to be working harder than normal," Belliveau said. "I was pretty proud of them, they came out all three periods and played as hard as they could."

South was up to the challenge early on, keeping Bishop Guertin off the scoreboard until the 9:09 mark of the first period. The Cardinals added another goal a little more than two minutes later to make it a 2-0 game.

"They had a lot of juice in them for the first period," Belliveau said of his team. "If we had a longer intermission between periods we might have been able to recharge a little bit. We have some kids who can skate in there. Time is not on our side when it comes to numbers."

Bishop Guertin scored three more times in the second period to break the game open, despite a spectacular effort from Radin.

"I thought the South goaltender played really well," Bishop said. "You don’t want your goalie facing 55 or 60 shots a game. That’s not a good way to make a career."

Belliveau felt going in that Radin was going to give South a chance no matter how many shots he faced.

"Radin was faced with a challenge and he knew that coming in to it," Belliveau said. " He stood up to that challenge. He made several fantastic saves."

Both teams return to the ice on Wednesday, as Bishop Guertin heads to Trinity and South travels to Manchester Memorial.