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Collier's OT Goal Lifts Malden Catholic to State Title

Malden Catholic completed its quest for a Division 1A State Championship yesterday with a 4-3 overtime win over St. John's Prep in the Super 8 Championship Game at TD Garden.

It was a battle all the way through. It was every bit a Super 8 Championship Game. And in the end, the pig pile at center ice was full of Malden Catholic jerseys and Brendan Collier’s number seven was at the bottom.

At the 4:50 mark in OT, Collier backhanded a blast that eluded St. John’s Prep net minder David LeTarte, giving the No. 1 Lancers a pulse-quickening 4-3 OT win and sealing MC’s first ever Super 8 Championship. The Lancers last state title came in 1974, before the dawn of Division 1A era.

“It’s unbelievable,” Collier said following his game-winner. “I’ve never done anything like this before.

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Conor (Evangelista) was looking to make a pass, and he just hit me coming through the middle...I got a little step on the defender and just threw a backhand on net and it just happened to go in.”

Following the goal, the BU-bound senior doggie-paddled his way to the giant Bruins logo where he was mobbed by teammates.

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The win represents the final hurdle in a pressure cooker of a season that saw MC (21-2-2) wearing an industrial size target on its back from “box to wire,” as head coach Chris Serino put it.

“That’s awfully tough to do,” he said. “I told them: ‘what you’re doing here and what you can accomplish is unbelievable, because you’ve done it box-to-wire.”

No. 2 St. John’s Prep head coach Kristian Hanson agreed that the spotlight was brightest on the opposite bench last night.

“I felt coming in the pressure was more on (MC) because nobody gave us a chance today,” he said. “If your going to lose, you want to see it come from a quality goal, you hate to lose on a deflection or something like that. It was a good goal.”

After a scoreless opener, the two teams would combine to pot four goals during the second period.

With 12:26 left in the second, Prep took the lead when Matt MacDonald scored after a nifty pass from Shane Eiserman, giving the Eagles a 1-0 lead. 26 seconds later, Tyler Sifferlen answered for MC, collecting his own rebound and stuffing it past LeTarte, knotting the score at 1-1.

The Eagles staked themselves to a 3-1 lead with less than three minutes left in the second, after goals by Harvard-bound Colin Blackwell and John Farrow, but again, the Lancers would respond quickly, setting the tone for the rest of the game.

Sophomore Ryan Fitzgerald, a BC recruit, got himself in great position in the goal mouth, and flicked home a centering pass from Mike Vecchione, cutting the lead to 3-2 with 2:32 left in the frame. The Lancers would score again with under 10 seconds on the clock, as Vecchione somehow scored from his knees after being mauled by a Prep defender. The UNH-bound senior’s tally tied the score at 3 heading into the final frame.

“Everything changed for us when we got down 3-1,” said Serino. “The sense of urgency was there. The way we played in the tournament, being down all the time, in every game, helped us in that situation.”

MC’s coach pointed to his team’s high level of confidence, saying that they often need to experience the feeling of their backs being against the wall before they find that sense of urgency.

“Sometimes, I think we just go in there and think we are going to win,” he said. “They’re a confident bunch, not a cocky bunch, they always believe they are going to win. We’re at our best when we are playing with a sense of urgency.”

The third period was anything but decisive, and neither team was able to break the deadlock, although the Eagles enjoyed a plethora of power play chances in the last three minutes of the contest.

“In a way, I was kind of nervous about that,” said Hanson. “I’m aware of how good they are on the penalty kill, and how much offense they can generate off their penalty kill. We were trying to be conservative with that, but we were a little bit tired at the end. It’s just one of those things: they’re a great team, and you’re not always going to score on the power play.”

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