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“Where we wanted to be all year,” came the shout from the Norwood dressing room after it defeated Catholic Memorial, 5-1, before 10,286 at Boston Garden yesterday to reach tomorrow’s final in the fourth annual Eastern Massachusetts Hockey Tournament. The same feeling was echoed a half hour later at the other end of the Garden as Arlington paraded from the ice after a machine-like effort in eliminating dark-horse Archbishop Williams, 3-1.
The two teams everyone talked about all year had battled their way to a Showdown tomorrow night (7:30). The Arlington club put together its best overall effort of the tournament, defeating the young Williams club that had only two seniors taking a regular turn. : : The turning point came in a 25-second span late in the first period., Arlington scored twice during the ninth minute of play and then just tightened its defense to preserve its lead. Alan Quinlan scored the first Arlington goal, taking a nice pass from Peter Noonan as he broke off the right wing, to beat Williams goaltender Frank Evans with’ a quick 20-footer.
The roar of the Arlington fans had hardly subsided when Kevin Carr had the Spy Ponders in command 2-0. Jay Shaughnessy did the heavy work on what proved to be the winning goal. He dug the puck out along the boards and fed Carr who was stationed 15 feet out.
The senior center just pulled the trigger a la Phil Esposito.
Mike Flanagan’s backhander from in close upped the Arlington advantage to 3-0 in the second periods. Over the final 12′ minutes Eddie Burns had his skaters playing a close checking game, hoping to limit the Williams scoring chances. Mark Al-brephj finally broke the Arlington strangle hold with a late-game goal, but for the hardworking Braintree skaters, time had almost run out.
‘‘That Williams team didn’t give up,” praised Burns a short time after the final buzzer. “They were big, strong and hit us.
“Make no bones about it. We were afraid of this Williams team. But I thought we played great defense to win. By this I mean our wings really backchecked, our goaltending was good and our defensemen played well. Our whole team played a great game.”
Norwood just exploded in the final period to put an end to what had been a great tournament effort by Memorial and coach Joe Quinn.
Perhaps the biggest adjustment Norwood made came in the locker room between the second and third periods. Wheeler shuffled his second line a bit, moving Bob Rosata from wing to center and Ed King from the middle to the outside.
The line accounted for a quick third period goal, and Norwood was on the way to the final.
Rosata, who finished the game with a pair of goals, slipped the undefeated Bay State League champions in front midway through the first period when his 35-footer broke off the inside of CM netminder Matt O’Neil’s pads.
Norwood upped its advantage to 2-0 at 2:02 of the middle period as hardworking Johnny Clifford set up Mike Martin with a good feed from the corner.
Memorial, a club that had surprised top-seeded Malden Catholic a week ago and rallied to edge Brookline in overtime, turned it on for a six-minute stretch in the middle period bidding to get back into the game. But Bill Pieri gave Norwood a steady effort in the goal and Norwood left the ice up two goals.
Clifford made it 3-0 before the final period was two minutes old with a well placed 25-footer along the ice to O’Neil’s stickside. Phil Nolfi scored on a power play situation at 3:37, and, after Tim Flynn had deflected a John Ahern drive from the point for CM’s lone goal, Rosata concluded the scoring for Norwood. Clifford set up the play with a good move off to the side of the Memorial net before giving the puck to Rosata alone in front.
“I thought my players worked hard, and I am certainly proud of the way they have played,” said Memorial’s Quinn, who is retiring after nine successful seasons. “This has been a good club. I thought it showed well today despite the score.”
Memorial’s O’Neil finished with 25 saves.
(All articles originally published in the Norwood Messenger)