Maine news, sports, weather from Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram, Portland, Maine

March 11, 2012

Class B hockey: Greely tops Messalonskee for state title

The Rangers capture their second championship in four years with a 6-2 victory.

By Paul Betit pbetit@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

LEWISTON — Peter Stauber was a freshman the first time Greely won the Class B boys’ hockey state championship in 2009.

“I didn’t play in that game but just watching those guys lift the trophy, I knew I wanted to do that, too, my senior year,” he said.

Stauber got his chance Saturday after scoring twice to help the Rangers roll to a 6-2 victory against Messalonskee at the Colisee.

Greely captured its second state title by using depth to overwhelm the Eagles offensively and shut them down defensively.

“Their all-around game is fantastic,” Messalonskee Coach Mike Latendresse said. “Their work ethic is amazing. Both ways, offensively and defensively, they come back really hard.

“It’s very frustrating for the players in transition at times. You think you’re going to be in the free and they have a guy coming back.”

Greely (15-4-2) entered the playoffs as the No. 1 seed in Western Maine and beat its three opponents by a combined margin of 16-5.

“We’ve been on a pretty good roll for the (first) two playoff games and we just wanted to stick to the systems that we have,” Greely Coach Barry Mothes said. “There’s reasons why we’re in this game, and it’s because we’ve played hard and smart the last few weeks. We just tried to keep that going again today. We did that.”

The turning point came early.

After a fairly even first 10 minutes, the Rangers scored three goals in a span of 1:02.

After intercepting a pass just inside his blue line, Stauber beat Travis St. Pierre and Sam Dexter down the right side, then scored on a breakaway with one second remaining on Messalonskee’s first power play of the game.

Less than a minute later, Ben Hackett scored on a shot from the right circle.

Ted Hart then jammed the puck in moments after the ensuing faceoff to make it 3-0.

“When you give up three goals, it’s really difficult to come back,” Latendresse said. “But you’ve got to give credit to Greely. They’re a really fantastic team. They deserved this win and I thought they were the better team.”

“To go out after the first period with a three-goal lead was a good cushion to have but we couldn’t stop there,” Stauber said.

“We had to keep it going. They turned us a little bit but we kept it going.”

Messalonskee goalie Nate DelGiudice, who made 29 saves, did all he could to keep his team in the game in the second period. But the Eagles (18-4) couldn’t get much going offensively. It took more than five minutes to record their first shot on goal in the second period.

Messalonskee finally broke through when St. Pierre, a defenseman, scored a power-play goal on a shot from center point to make it 3-1 with more than five minutes left in the second period.

But that’s as close as the Eagles could get.

With 3:28 left in the third, Hart got his second goal of the game. Stauber and Peter Hurley sandwiched empty-net goals around Dexter’s 48th of the season for Messalonskee.

Staff Writer Paul Betit can be contacted at 791-6424 or at:

pbetit@pressherald.com

Twitter: PaulBetitPPH

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