By TRIS WYKES
Valley News Staff Writer
PLYMOUTH, N.H. — There’s no shame in losing to a better opponent as long as you play your heart out. The Lebanon-Stevens-Mount Royal boys hockey team’s 4-1 playoff semifinal setback to Berlin-Gorham on Wednesday at Plymouth State’s Hanaway Rink met both standards.
The defending NHIAA Division III champion Mountaineers were just too talented. Rolling three lines of nearly equal strength and leveraging clear advantages in speed and depth, Berlin-Gorham piled up a 52-12 shot advantage and will face Belmont-Gilford in Saturday’s title game at Manchester’s SNHU Arena.
The Mountaineers used a power-play goal for a 1-0 lead after one period. LSMR forged an improbable 1-1 tie midway through the second stanza, but Berlin-Gorham answered two minutes later and tacked on a pair of third-period tallies to win going away. The Raiders’ Toby Cromwell stopped 48 shots.
“We played them hard but that’s a really good hockey team,” said Lebanon-Stevens-Mount Royal coach Jim Damren. “Hockey’s a way of life in Berlin. I joke that there’s hockey season and two weeks of summer vacation up there and that’s it.”
Lebanon-Stevens-Mount Royal’s downfall began when Luke Greene committed the first of his three minor penalties during the contest, this one midway through the first period. Berlin-Gorham’s Michael Cote scored from the left circle and the Mountaineers (19-1) could have soon done more damage if not for their inability to capitalize on a two-man power play.
The Raiders (14-5-1) got the arena jumping seven minutes into the second period when second-line wing Paddy Mooney scored. A wild scrum in front of Berlin-Gorham netminder Kolin Melanson suddenly parted to give the sophomore a clear shooting lane from the low slot. It was Mooney’s second goal in as many games, but his team was being outshot at that point, 27-5.
“They’re just a deeper hockey team than we are,” said Damren, who deployed only two forward lines throughout the season. LSMR lost three times to Berlin-Gorham this winter by a combined 11-2.
The Mountaineers shrugged LSMR’s tally off two minutes later when the Raiders defense fell a step behind puck movement in the defensive zone. Evan Poulin scored at the right post with Cromwell down on his stomach.
“One of our main objectives after another team scores is to answer in the next couple of shifts,” said Berlin-Gorham coach Mike Poulin, whose team staged a wild, third-period rally to knock the Raiders out of last season’s semifinals. “We’ve been pretty good at doing that.”
Berlin-Gorham entered the third period with a 39-8 shot advantage and pushed the score to 3-1 when Jameson Walsh popped a rebound into the net’s open left side a minute after the second intermission. The Mountaineers delivered the coup de grace two minutes later, Ben Estrella blowing past a backskating defender on the right wing, turning the corner and sliding a backhand shot past Cromwell at the far post.
“This rink is a little wider than what we’re used to playing on, so our speed helped us here,” Mike Poulin said. “We had guys flying up the ice.”
Said Damren: “We told our guys we couldn’t afford to let (Berlin-Gorham) set up in our zone and for the most part, we did that. But they won a lot of loose puck battles and that took a lot out of us and left us backpedaling.”
Notes: Berlin-Gorham’s 5-on-3 advantage was partially created by a minor penalty Damren had never seen called before. Greene, Cromwell and a Mountaineer all dropped their sticks during a goalmouth scramble and Cromwell picked up the two thin twigs with his blocker hand, seemingly without realizing he was clutching them both. The referees whistled Greene for holding and Cromwell for unsportsmanlike conduct. “I said ‘You’re calling what?’” Damren recalled. “But they were adamant and clear.” … Players from Belmont-Gilford and Hollis Brookline-Derryfield, waiting to play the night’s second semifinal, erupted in cheers when the Raiders scored, no doubt rooting for the upset. LSMR beat Belmont Gilford and split with Hollis Brookline-Derryfield during the regular season… Lebanon-Stevens-Mount Royal’s season was significantly impacted when leading scorer Griffin Auch suffered a broken collarbone in January after catching a skate edge and crashing into the Campion Rink end boards during practice wind sprints. Auch, who recently began skating with the Raiders in non-contact drills but was not cleared in time to play again, had either scored or assisted on all but one of his team’s goals at the time of his injury. He plans to enlist in the Coast Guard… Raiders assistant coach Brad Whitaker attended Massachusetts high school St. John’s Prep, where he played hockey with 1981’s third overall NHL draft pick, Bobby Carpenter, and football with current Louisiana State head coach Brian Kelly … LSMR will lose seniors Cromwell, Greene, Auch, Hunter Christian, Liam Ouellette and Nathan Stark to graduation.
Tris Wykes can be reached at twykes@vnews.com.