PORTLAND — After a wild first period that included three goals in the final two minutes, top-ranked Greely settled down for a 4-2 victory over upset-minded Yarmouth in a Western Class B boys’ hockey semifinal at Portland Ice Arena Saturday night.
“It stayed a tight game all the way to the end,” said Greely Coach Barry Mothes, whose team beat Yarmouth twice in the regular season. “I give Yarmouth a lot of credit for playing with a lot of hearts and guts. They came hard all night. It was a really good high school hockey game.”
The Rangers (15-3-1) will face No. 2 York (14-5) in the regional final Wednesday night at the Colisee in Lewiston. York eliminated No. 3 Cape Elizabeth 5-1 earlier Saturday.
York and Greely met once in the regular season, a 3-0 Greely victory in late January that included a pair of empty-net goals.
Greely never trailed Saturday, but Yarmouth twice rallied to tie. The only scoring after the five-goal first period came with 94 seconds left in the second, when Greely senior Justin Murphy scored on a screened shot from between the circles after Andrew Hackett poked a loose puck into the slot.
Hackett finished with three assists, and Johnny Downey added two goals for Greely.
Downey staked Greely to a 1-0 lead in the game’s third minute. Yarmouth tied it at 1 just after the expiration of a boarding penalty to Eamon Costello, who hopped out of the box, took a breakaway pass from Marshall Brunelle and tucked a neat backhand past Greely goalie Matt Labbe.
A fluke goal on a slap shot by Greely defenseman Michael Tuller put the Rangers back on top. Tuller’s shot deflected off a Yarmouth defender, fluttered into the air over his shoulder and landed behind goalie Red DeSmith.
Undaunted, Yarmouth tied it again with 44 seconds left in the period when Costello’s forechecking left the puck for Brunelle, who fed Alex Kurtz for a goal that made it 2-2.
Just 22 seconds later, Downey snapped in a shot from the left circle.
“Pretty lucky,” Downey said, “but a lot of shots on goal, that’s what happens.”
The Clippers (10-9) had two power-play opportunities in the second period, but both times incurred penalties that cut short their advantage.
“That hurt,” Yarmouth Coach Marc Halsted said. “We needed to create traffic in front of Matt Labbe. We needed to get into his crease and be a nuisance. We were just getting in there and backing him into his crease, we’re on the power play and everything’s flowing, and the next thing you know it’s four-on-four.”
Labbe finished with 28 saves, 12 of them in the third period as Greely successfully killed off its fourth penalty. DeSmith wound up with 33 saves.
“I thought we took care of things better as the game went on,” Mothes said. “That third period was big, to be able to protect that lead and play smarter. We made fewer bad passes and kept things simpler. That’s a great test for our team, to be able to protect a lead in a big game like this.”
Staff Writer Glenn Jordan can be contacted at 791-6425 or at: gjordan@pressherald.com
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