Londonderry boys hockey continues hot streak with win over Bow

CONCORD - Londonderry High School boys hockey coach Peter Bedford said his team played “a fairly complete game” en route to its 4-0 Division I victory over Bow Wednesday night at Everett Arena.

The Lancers took a 1-0 lead into the third period before scoring three more goals over the final 15 minutes and received a 19-save shutout performance from sophomore goaltender Michael Anstey. Londonderry also went 1-for-3 on the power play and 5-for-5 on the penalty kill.

The Lancers (6-8-1) held Bow (6-9) to single digit shot-on-goal outputs in each period and finished with a 27-19 shots-on-goal advantage.

“I think we established our forecheck pretty well, I don’t think that we gave up a great deal of opportunity and when we did, our goaltender certainly stood in there and made the saves he had to make,” Bedford said. “It’s been a tough season for them (the players) but they play good competition so I think maybe at the end now we’re starting to see the fruits of that a little bit.”

The Lancers maintained a possession edge over Bow throughout the entire opening period and were finally rewarded for their efforts with a goal from Sam Neville. The freshman forward skated toward the goal and beat Falcons senior goaltender Ethan Berrigan (23 saves) stick side off an assist from Drew Nutter with 4:51 left in the first period to open the game’s scoring.

Neville netted his second goal of the game 54 seconds into the third period, when he ripped a wrister through Berrigan’s pads to double Londonderry’s advantage. 

“I saw the defensemen both covering me, I saw one of my teammates right in front of the net,” Neville said of his second goal. “I was just hoping to get a shot on net and rebound so he could put it in and it went in. I was lucky.”

The Lancers took a 3-0 lead at the 5:15 mark of the third period on Nicholas Pitarys’ goal during a five-on-three Londonderry advantage. Pitarys scored from the left circle off a feed from senior co-captain Austin Cardosi.

The Lancers’ other senior co-captain, Zac Rheault, capped the game’s scoring 16 seconds after Pitarys’ tally with his unassisted goal. 

“We get up, we maintain, we protect - we did a lot of good things (Wednesday),” Bedford said.

Bow equaled its first-period shots-on-goal total (three) over the opening 40 seconds of the second period and had two power-play opportunities later in the middle frame. Bow also had three power plays over a third period in which it mustered seven shots on goal.

The Lancers have won two straight by a combined 10-0 score entering their home game against Windham (8-7) Saturday at 8:10 p.m.

“We’re not quite there,” Bedford said. “We’ll get there. We understand that. But it’s good to see them (the players) coming together and gelling now as a group.”