YARMOUTH — Yarmouth was rewarded for keeping the faith and Greely found reason to hope Tuesday night as the Clippers posted a 4-2 victory over the Rangers in a Western Class B boys’ hockey quarterfinal at a packed and raucous Travis Roy Arena.
Walt Conrad and Patrick Grant each had a goal and an assist to lead No. 2-seed Yarmouth (11-7-1), which moves on to a semifinal against No. 6 Gorham on Friday night at the Colisee in Lewiston.
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The Clippers extended their unbeaten streak to nine games (8-0-1), a string made all the more impressive considering Yarmouth opened the season 0-5.
“We were in a tough place, I’m not going to kid you,” Conrad said. “But we came to practice every morning, ran our plays and worked on playing tough defensive hockey. It’s not flashy, but once our team committed to that, we turned it around.”
Yarmouth outshot Greely 34-12. But Greely (3-15-1), led by goalie Kyle Kramlich (30 saves) didn’t roll over.
“We’ve gotten stronger as a team the last few weeks,” Greely Coach Barry Mothes said. “We’ve had our share of adversity this season. To be able to pull it together here a little at the end in a game like this gives us something to build on next year.”
The effort didn’t surprise Yarmouth Coach David St. Pierre.
“We expected this to be a tight game all the way through. Keep going hard though we did a good job limiting their scoring chances, kept them away from our net,” St. Pierre said. “Offensively, we just had to keep our feet moving and try to get pucks in front of the net with traffic. That’s the key against (Kramlich).”
The Clippers dismissed their regular-season sweep of the Rangers (5-3 and 4-0).
“It’s playoff hockey, we knew every team is going to ramp it up,” Conrad said. “Luckily we got some pucks in the back of the net tonight, and things went our way.”
Grant scored for the Clippers at 14:03 of the first.
“My linemates, Tyler Hall and Cooper May, pressured the puck, it came up the wall to me I was able to take it into the slot and put it in nearside.”
Tucker Parent made it 2-0 at 5:03 of the second period with a nifty move. Skating in on goal, he drew the goalie out, pulled the puck back and slipped it inside the near post.
Jack Saffian got one back for Greely with a short-handed goal at 13:41 of the second, collecting a pass from Nathan Gervais and firing a shot in off the near post to beat Yarmouth goalie Nick Allen (10 saves). Suddenly it was 2-1.
Conrad’s power-play goal at 3:01 of the third regained a two-goal lead for Yarmouth.
But 2:40 later, Greely Nick Caputo cut the gap back to one with his blast from the blue line for a power-play goal.
May closed out scoring for Yarmouth with an empty-net goal at 14:23, with assists to Grant and Conrad.
Now it’s on to the Colisee for the Clippers, who beat Gorham 1-0 on Feb. 14.
“It’s my first trip (to the semifinals),” Conrad said. “I’m glad to take it. We’ll see where it goes.”
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