BEVERLY — A noted uptick in want, physicality and good ol’ fashioned get-after-it in the second period Saturday afternoon gave the Beverly High boys hockey team exactly what it was looking for.
Trailing by one after a sloppy opening stanza, the Panthers turned it around in the second by scoring three unanswered goals en route to a x-x victory over Pentucket at at Bourque Arena.
Sophomore center Logan Bowen, senior captain Ethan Haight and junior right wing Jonathan Mezza all tucked shots into the twine as the home team ramped it up in that middle frame, outshooting their non-league opponents by an 11-3 count.
Coming off of a loss last time out, head coach Andy Scott and his assistant, Andrew Irving, had been stressing to their team to keep things simple: chip pucks off the wall and out of trouble; get pucks into the corners on the forecheck and retrieve them, and cycling the puck whenever possible.
“Shift after shift, we wanted to be smart and strong in our defensive zone and attack when we had the chance,” said Scott, whose team held a 34-15 shot advantage. “The first period we were just all right, but we really turned it up in the second and kept it up in the third. We didn’t have too many turnovers the last two periods, but forced a lot of them.”
The visiting Panthers (same nickname as Beverly) skated primarily four defensemen and two lines and went up and down with their hosts the entire way. But mistakes were their undoing.
“We had a good first period and our first line (Nick Kutcher, Aaron Wircicz and Will Sorensen) played well. We had the period we wanted to have,” said Pentucket (2-5-1) head coach Dan Bly.
“Unfortunately, in the second period we got away from a few things that were working for us. I don’t know if they wore us down as much as we fell asleep and let our foot off the gas a bit. We made some poor decisions in the neutral zone, turned the puck over, and instead of getting the puck in deep we found ourselves on the ice too long. That was the game.”
Bowen tied things up for Beverly, 2-2, after taking a nice pass from defenseman Nate Wheeler in the neutral zone, skating the puck over the blue line and letting go a shot that went bar down on goalie Josh Yoon — complete with a rink-echoing ping off the crossbar at 1:23.
“Logan’s a very good player who’s only going to keep getting bigger, stronger and better,” said Scott. “He’s just so consistent, which isn’t always easy for a young player. He and Mikey (O’Leary, another sophomore center who had two assists) are both 200-foot players.”
An inability to possess the puck in the neutral zone allowed Haight to give the Orange-and-Black the lead for good five minutes later. He grabbed the loose puck, took several strides down the right wing boards and ripped a shot high and home for a 3-2 lead. Mezza then doubled that with a little over two minutes to go before the second intermission, cashing in out front.
“It’s big that our guys are committed to the little things we’re trying to do, and it paid off with a couple of nice goals in that second period,” said Scott.
Mezza then sealed the deal with his team-leading seventh goal of the season with 1:07 to play, cashing in on the power play off another O’Leary faceoff win.
Beverly shot out to an early lead just 3:21 in when O’Leary won an offensive faceoff and drew the puck back to defenseman Bobby Massa, and the captain ripped a laser into the Pentucket cage. But the visitors took advantage of a pair of turnovers by the home team and took a 2-1 lead into the first intermission.
Sophomore defenseman Mac Cole tied it up off the rush just 71 seconds later, taking pass from winger Mikey Doucette in the neutral zone and whistling a shot into the BHS cage from down the left wing boards. Seven minutes later, captain Nick Kutcher was the opportunistic one, pouncing on a Beverly foible in the offensive zone and roofing it over Redman.
Beverly will be back at Bourque Arena for a pair of upcoming Northeastern Conference home games against Peabody-Saugus (Wednesday, 6:30 p.m.) and Masconomet (Saturday, 6 p.m.).
Beverly 5, Pentucket 2
at Raymond J. Bourque Arena, Beverly
Pentucket;2;0;0;2
Beverly;1;3;1;5
First period: B, Bobby Massa (Mikey O’Leary), 3:21; P, Mac Cole (Mikey Doucette), 4;32; P, Nick Kutcher (un), 11:13.
Second period: B, Logan Bowen (Nate Wheeler), 1:23; B, Ethan Haight (un), 6:32; B, Jonathan Mezza (Connor Wallace, O’Leary), 12:45.
Third period: B, Mezza (O’Leary), ppg, 13:53.
Saves: P, Josh Yoon 29; B, PJ Redman 13.
Records: B, 3-2-1; P, 2-5-1.