St. Mary’s holds off Shrewsbury

WATERTOWN — It took some late game heroics, but fifth-ranked St. Mary’s scored deep into the third period to come away with a 2-1 victory over No. 12 Shrewsbury in first-round action of the Div. 1 tournament at Ryan Arena in Watertown.

St. Mary’s will move on to play Woburn in the Div. 1 quarterfinal at O’Brien Rink in Woburn this Friday.

“They’re one of the better teams that we’ve played all year,” said St. Mary’s head coach Frank Pagliuca. “I’m just proud of us, we grinded that win out. It was a tough win against a tough team and we’re moving on.”

With the score knotted at 1-1 in the final frame, freshman Jenna Chaplain took a wrist shot from the top of the slot through traffic that was tipped by freshman Maggie Pierce and stopped by Colonial net minder Riley MacCausland, but Pierce kept fighting for the rebound and jammed it home, making it 2-1 with just 3:36 to go.

“I got on her a little bit in the second period,” Pagliuca said. “She responded in a big way in the third off Jenna’s shot. … Our focus was to get it to the net and get traffic in front of her.”

Trailing by a goal and on the power play late in the second, Shrewsbury (14-6-2) senior Grace Felicio cut across the offensive blue line into the high slot and stepped into a slap shot that beat Spartan goalie Rhyan Pitari (13 saves) five-hole to even the score with 2:16 left in the frame.

The Spartans (16-2-4) opened the scoring 7:33 into the contest when Pierce (goal, assist) dropped a pass to senior blue liner Megan Parthum (goal, assist) who fired a wrist shot from the point over the blocker of MacCausland (21 saves) to make it 1-0.

In more girls hockey ... Emma O’Donovan scored both goals and Bridget Gray made 31 saves as No. 7 Belmont (15-3-4) defeated No. 10 Waltham, 2-0, in a Div. 1 first-round contest . ... Maddy Krepelka’s power-play goal with less than nine minutes left broke a scoreless tie and gave No. 6

Arlington (15-2-5) a 2-0 win over No. 11 Needham.

Boys hockey

Ronan Locke scored twice, including the gamewinner with 44 seconds left, as No. 13 Swampscott (1111-0) knocked off fifth-seeded Watertown, 2-1, in a Div. 3 North quarterfinal.