With 4:46 left in a recreation destined to be decided by the primary aim, Marshfield junior Stevie Faria discovered the puck on his stick in a high-scoring space. He had possessed the puck there earlier and elected to move.
This time, he fired the shot.
It smashed towards the twine within the high nook and gave the No. 5 Rams a 1-0 win over No. 12 Franklin in Saturday’s Div. 1 second-round contest. The Rams (19-3-2) now transfer on to the quarterfinals to tackle No. 4 Pope Francis subsequent week.
“I’m like ‘oh wow, I’ve got the puck on my stick,”’ Faria mentioned. “I had to put it home for the boys.”
The Round of 16 matchup was in any other case outlined by the stellar goaltending. Brady Quackenbush made 29 saves for the Rams, whereas Franklin’s Colby Wagner made 24.
“I don’t even know what to say [about Quackenbush],” Marshfield coach Dan Connolly mentioned. “He’s dialed in, he’s focused, the kids rally around him and he is a captain for a reason. He doesn’t get rattled and is in control out there.”
The first interval featured quite a few possibilities from either side, with about 4 top quality alternatives for Marshfield and two for the Panthers. After this level, Franklin appeared to get the higher hand in possibilities.
“We withheld their push in the first and pushed back really strong in the second,” Franklin coach Chris Spillane mentioned. “We had several scoring opportunities, missed some nets, and I knew it was going to come down to a one-goal game.”
Many of the aforementioned possibilities got here on fast passes from the potent Franklin offense that hung 11 objectives on Andover in its earlier matchup. Quackenbush used elite positioning to neutralize each shot.
“It’s a lot of communication with the defense,” Quackenbush mentioned. “It gets pretty loud in here, I like to stay focused and locked in. We also need to stay on the same page and know what is going on together.”
On the opposite finish, Wagner was examined with quite a few blasts, one in every of which even clanked towards the crossbar. Another notable alternative was the one Faria determined to selflessly move on, one thing Connolly instructed him to regulate.
“[Connolly] told me to take the shot instead and I totally agreed,” Faria mentioned. “The rest of the game I was just trying to take as many shots as I could.”
After Faria’s eventual successful aim, the Panthers elevated stress within the remaining minutes, together with round two minutes with six skaters. Quackenbush and the protection dealt with the stress and locked down the win.
“We have so much chemistry on and off the ice,” Quackenbush mentioned. “It’s seamless.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com