METHUEN – It was a typical Methuen High and Haverhill High boys hockey game.
Emotions high. Physical play. and goals. Lots of goals.
After both teams scored a goal in the first period, the first 4:47 of the second period included five combined goals, with Methuen scoring four of them.
That was more than enough for the No. 8 Div. 3 Methuen Rangers (11-1-2) come away with a 6-3 win over No. 26 Haverhill (5-7-0).
Methuen swept the two-game series, winning 4-3 in round one.
“This was a typical Methuen and Haverhill game. You never know what’s going to happen. Throw the records away,” said Methuen head coach Billy Blackwell. “It’s going to be pushing and shoving, there’s going to be penalties, they all know each other, there’s going to be some yapping, so it doesn’t matter it really was a typical Methuen and Haverhill game. There’s a couple of goals, then they score a couple, we score a couple and then a couple of penalties, this one had it all.”
The second period barrage of goals consisted of Methuen’s Aiden Cashman, Sean Morris, Dominic Romano and Will MacLaren all finding the back of the net, sandwiched between a goal by Haverhill’s Nolan Sheehan.
Haverhill scored a goal late in the second and Methuen put it away with a goal midway through the third.
“We have some offensive power but unfortunately we have some trouble on the other side,” said Blackwell. “We’ll take the win but we need to clean up the little things especially in our own end. We have some speed upfront and when there’s some open space, we utilize that speed. We just need to clamp down on some other things.”
MacLaren led the way with a goal and two assists. Patrick Morris and Quinn Ronan had a goal and an assist. Cashman, Sean Morris and Romano had single tallies, while Bryce Murray and Andrew Cox had single assists.
For Haverhill, Matt Costa, Sheehan and Jack Baker had the goals, while, Sheehan and Zach Hurrell had single assists.
“Overall the effort was there and the boys played hard,” said Haverhill coach Joe Roberts. “We had one period with a lull of about three minutes and we let in three goals and that was the difference in the game. Sometimes when you let up a goal it’s like ‘Oh no,’ but we want to these guys to get hungry after giving up a goal and go get the next one.
“We have really young defensemen and they are all really improving. It’s all about getting experience and confidence. They are still a little gun-shy seeing these really tall and big senior guys going up against them, so naturally they get a little intimidated, but they continue to work hard and improve.”
Twitter: @JamiePote