NASHUA, NH — Bring your ‘A’ game against a top-tier opponent and you give yourself a fighting chance.
Shoot yourself in the foot with multiple mental mistakes and it’s going to be a long day at the office.
Such was the case for South-Pelham, Saturday afternoon, in a 5-0 loss to Division II powerhouse St. Thomas Aquinas, at Conway Arena.
Jack Estes had a hat trick and two assists to lead the Saints (8-1-0), who broke open a close game with three goals in the third period.
Garrett Aceto scored two of those third-period goals and added a pair of assists.
South-Pelham was whistled for six penalties, meaning the Kings were skating one man down for 12 of the game’s 45 minutes (27 percent), making it nearly impossible to to sustain an offensive attack.
”We didn’t play a full game. We had a lot of penalties and that was really the cause of our demise,” said South-Pelham Head Coach Chris Zarlenga. “We just kept getting in the (penalty) box and they capitalized on it a couple of different times. And then we just stopped playing.”
St. Thomas Aquinas scored power play goals in the first and second periods, both off the stick of Estes, to build a 2-0 lead.
Estes’ first power play goal came out of a scramble in front of Kings’ goalie Ethan Robinson (26 saves). It came with just 30 seconds remaining in the first period, spoiling what had been a solid 15 minutes of hockey for South-Pelham.
The Kings, who had been idle since a 3-1 win over Bow on Jan. 15, came out of the gates fired up. They played aggressively and took the game to STA the opening puck drop, peppering Saints’ goalie Zach Pattow with four shots in the first 90 seconds.
Pattow (24 saves) and STA weathered the early attack and South-Pelham was unable to maintain their offensive pressure, hindered in no small by a pair of penalties.
”It’s definitely hard to build and maintain momentum when you’re in the box,” said Zarlenga. “You’ve got a couple guys that are killing penalties that are just gassed. We play a pretty aggressive penalty kill and it takes a lot of energy to do that.”
STA doubled their lead with a second power play goal by Estes, midway through the period. His wrister in the slot finished off some nifty puck movement, which included Aceto and Brandon McCoughey (two assists)
South-Pelham (1-5-0) had scoring chances in the second, including their lone power play.
Brandon Doughty, David Ramalho and Braden Landsteiner had to of the best bids, only to be denied by Pattow.
By the third period, the weary Kings were skating with heavy legs and STA began to dominate.
Aceto made it 3-0 just over two minutes into the third on a pretty shot from the left circle. Later in the period, following an S-P icing, Aceto scored right off the faceoff, converting a pass from Estes.
Estes finished off his hat trick with 1:55 remain. Aceto got an assist, but that really doesn’t do Justice to his sensational rush. Aceto flew down the left side, swooped around the S-P net, then found Estes wide open in front.
