Icemen seize division lead with 3 W’s

Sophomore standout Shaun Kirby is 3rd on the team in total points. (Mike Barucci photo)

The Canton High boys ice hockey team knows how to win in all sorts of ways, and the Bulldogs proved it again last week with a 3-0 stretch that featured three very different kinds of wins.

The three victories — a blowout win over Attleboro, a low-scoring battle with Oliver Ames, and a high-scoring, back and forth affair with North Attleboro — pushed the Bulldogs to 10-5 overall and to the brink of another Hockomock Davenport Division title.

Sitting in second place to open the week, the Bulldogs overtook OA with last Thursday’s 2-0 home win and then outdueled a talented North Attleboro squad 6-4 to secure a berth in the Division 2 south sectional tournament.

Both wins came against teams with winning records and both were impressive in their own right, according to head coach Brian Shuman.

Commenting on the OA win, Shuman said it was “just a really good hockey game” between two tough rivals, highlighted by excellent goaltending from Canton’s Justin Slocum and the Tigers’ Jimmy Tierney.

“I think both teams realized this was a huge game,” said Shuman afterwards. “It wasn’t the championship game by any stretch, but it was definitely a game that dictated who would be in first place.”

Junior Matt Lazaro and senior captain Brian Hagan each had a goal in the contest, while Slocum made several big saves — including a couple of huge ones late in the second period — en route to his first solo shutout of the season.

The Tigers also got strong goaltending from their all-star netminder, who made close to 30 saves and helped keep the visitors in the game.

“He’s always a tough goalie to beat,” Shuman said of Tierney. “But we played great. It easily could have been 4-0 as we missed a few grade-A scoring opportunities in the game.”

Shuman said there was a similar “playoff feel” to their game against North Attleboro on Saturday; however, this one played out much differently as the two teams combined for 10 goals on 56 shots.

Canton had a whopping 39-17 advantage in the latter category and generally controlled the pace of play, but the pesky Rocketeers kept battling back, overcoming an early 2-0 deficit and then adding two more in the third after falling behind 5-2.

Still, the Bulldogs were able to pull it out in the end, led by Lazaro, who scored his team-leading 14^th goal and assisted on two others. The team’s overall points leader, junior captain John Femia, also had a goal in the win, as did Shaun Kirby (23 pts.), Hagan (19 pts.), Seamus Pecararo, and Jerry Harding.

Hagan’s goal was his second in as many games and eighth overall, although his stat line only tells part of the story, according to his coach.

“Brian does everything for us,” said Shuman. “He plays physical when we need him to play physical. He’s always solid defensively, and he’s also scored some big goals. He has all the little intangibles that we need in order to win games.”

In earlier action last week, the Bulldogs traveled to Aleixo Skating Rink and easily dispatched Attleboro 13-2. Shuman said the score was somewhat misleading as the Bombardiers generated several scoring chances, yet the visitors were clearly in control from start to finish.

Femia led the way with four goals, and junior Jim Jenkins had three of his own for his first hat trick. Other goal scorers included Harding, Pecararo, Bobby Mullaney, Cian O’Mahony, and sophomore defenseman Ryan Lodge, who notched his first career goal off a beautiful pass from senior Mike O’Connor.

With a playoff spot locked up, the Bulldogs will now look to finish strong over the final two weeks of the regular season, starting with nonleague games this week against Medfield and Medway. The team will also play a makeup game at Milford on Sunday before heading to Taunton next Tuesday to compete in the Quinn Memorial Hockey Tournament.

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