High School Sports

January 19. 2013 10:09PM

NHIAA Hockey: Concord breaks through, beats BG

By MARK QUIRK
New Hampshire Union Leader

Linked articles:
NHIAA Roundup: Shorthanded Memorial overcomes Exeter
NHIAA Scoreboard: Jan. 19, 2013

TYNGSBOROUGH, Mass. - For about the past month the Concord High School hockey team had been playing teams tight but had little to show for it.

That changed on Saturday when the Crimson Tide put together a solid effort and picked up their first win since before Christmas by beating Bishop Guertin of Nashua, 3-1, during Division I action at Skate 3.

Concord had gone 0-3-1 since beating Bishop Brady, 3-1, on Dec. 22. Two of the losses were by a goal, the tie came against Trinity of Manchester and the other loss was a 5-1 decision to defending champ Pinkerton Academy of Derry.

The team managed to pull it together to score three unanswered goals against the Cardinals, including two in the third period to pull away for the win. Bishop Guertin is now 4-5 and the Crimson Tide are 3-3-2.

"We've played a lot of close games, but we were due to break out," Concord coach Duncan Walsh said. "We needed a win bad."

After a scoreless first period, the Cardinals struck first in the second with a goal by Matt Blais. Concord tied it up when Hagan Otto lit the lamp with 2:34 left in the frame.

It was 1-1 after two periods and then the Crimson Tide took control in the third. They started the period on the power play, which they failed to score on, but took the lead for good on a shorthanded goal by Adam Godbout with 11:38 left.

Godbout rushed into the offensive zone on the right side and let an accurate wrist shot fly from the circle that beat BG goalie Griffin Scanlon (23 saves) stick side for what ended up being the game winner.

"I just tried to get the puck out and then I got a break away," Godbout said. "I saw an open area and I just shot at it."

Concord got some insurance three minutes later when it was on the power play.

After some good puck movement around the zone, Godbout got the puck along the left boards. He slid a pass to Braden Smith in front of the net and the stocky forward let loose a shot just before getting hit that found its way to the back of the net to make it 3-1 with 8:39 remaining.

"We've been playing all right," Walsh said. "The Trinity game (last) Sunday we played a good game, a 2-2 tie, then went up to Hanover, played pretty well and lost 2-1. We're just not scoring a lot of goals. We got three today, so that was enough."

Crimson Tide goalie Benjamin Nelson wasn't challenged much after that and finished the game with 20 saves. It was the third loss in a row for the Cardinals, who started the season 2-0.

Concord seemed to be the better team from the opening face-off. It generated the best scoring chance of the first period when Godbout got a good look with 7:52 left. And early in the second period, Scanlon had to make a great glove save on Bradley Murphy to keep it a scoreless tie.

The best chance Bishop Guertin had in the third period came early on when a shot by Blais hit the crossbar. After that the Concord defense tightened up and the offense got the job done.

Bishop Guertin will try to get back into the win column next Saturday when it hosts Bishop Brady of Concord and the Crimson Tide will try to keep the momentum going when it hosts Londonderry on Monday.

"We're playing a lot better in our end," Walsh said. "Our goalie is only a freshman and he's playing pretty well. It's just a matter of being opportunistic when you get a chance."