According to Scarborough hockey coach Jay Mazur, his team dressed and undressed at least four, maybe five times before Tuesday night’s Western Class A championship game.
As the Eastern Class A championship game between Brunswick and Lewiston worked its way through five overtimes, Scarborough’s routine went something like this: skates on, skates off, skates back on, then off again, then outside for some fresh air.
As the night wore on, the mouths of crowd members began opening more for yawns than for cheers. It didn’t make a bit of difference to the Red Storm, though. When the showdown with No. 1-seeded Cheverus finally began at 10:15, more than two hours after its scheduled start time, Scarborough was ready.
“They did nothing but focus,” said Mazur. “Hands down, this was one of the best games that they’ve played. They were focused. I’m very proud of what they’ve done today and what they’ve done all year.”
Scarborough lost, 3-2, in double overtime, but that didn’t matter to Mazur. What mattered was that his team stayed focused and never gave up – even when it was down 2-1 with just seconds to play in the game.
Mazur called a timeout and pulled goalie Jason Barden for an extra skater with 1:10 to go. Over the course of the next minute, Cheverus was called for two penalties, creating a six-on-three for the Red Storm. Junior forward Ben Talbot poked in the game-tying goal with five seconds left.
Cheverus’s Casey Cox made a save on Blake Lucier, but the puck trickled through his legs and straddled the goal line before Talbot cleaned it up.
“I thought I was going to break a blood vessel in my head,” said Mazur. “I needed aspirin right after that because it was such a happy, good feeling that we did that and they did it, and being able to go into overtime and continue that. There’s nothing to be ashamed of or down about. They should be proud.”
Barden made five saves in the first overtime – and finished with 37 in the game – but 45 seconds into the second extra period the Stags took advantage of a fortuitous bounce and got one by him.
Christopher Pochebit put a shot on from the left dot, and the rebound bounced to Mike Antoniou, who was crashing through the slot. He got enough on the puck to lift it over Barden.
“Scarborough’s a great young team and they’re a bounce of the puck away from being in the state championship game on Saturday,” said Cheverus coach Jack Lowry. “So hat’s off to them. They had a great season and they had a great game tonight, and we got the bounce at the end.”
Scarborough’s bounce, unfortunately, came at the beginning. The Red Storm took a 1-0 lead 12:52 into the game when Stephen Cook’s shot from the point bounced off the back boards and right to senior captain Brent Mayo in the slot. He beat Cox with a quick wrister.
The Stags tied the game 22 seconds later on a goal by Jonathan Anton.
There wouldn’t be any more scoring until the third. There were opportunities, though. Scarborough had a pair of two-man advantages in the second period that both lasted more than a minute.
But Cox came up big. He made saves on Jason Quirk, Mayo and Michael Dakers to keep the Red Storm off the board.
The Cheverus offense, meanwhile, came alive in the third.
“After the second period the coaches got together and we basically said, ‘Our role in this is over.’ We told them what they need to do and now they needed to go out and execute,” said Lowry. “They had to go out and show they want it more than Scarborough wants it.”
Antoniou scored the go-ahead goal with 2:24 to go in the period and then, later on, he got the game-winner.
“They all played well, they played well together and they did the job,” said Mazur. “We just came up short at the end, that’s all. It was going to bounce one way or the other. Someone has to win and it was them, but all the more power to them.”
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