By Joe Reardon
Braintree went out and made its biggest case yet this season that it deserves strong consideration for a Super 8 bid by knotting up the fast-skating St. John's Prep Eagles 2-2 last night at Zapustas Arena.
The Wamps moved to 13-2-3 while the Eagles' record went to an almost identical 13-2-4 with each squad picking up a point.
It was Braintree who felt the most satisfied at the final horn.
"I think it shows, I believe, that we're definitely a top ten team," said Braintree head coach Dave Fasano. "That's my opinion and it's only one opinion. For our guys to battle right to the end with them says a lot for our program right now. It's a good point for us. Obviously we would have loved to have the two points."
Trailing 2-1 in the second period, the Eagles tied it for good when Dan Hennessy got his stick on a rebound in front of the net and beat Braintree goaltender David McDonough with 4.3 seconds remaining. McDonough was brilliant in the final 15 minutes with the biggest save coming on a Billy Falter bid just above the crease with 31 seconds left.
It took St. John's just 1:49 to get on the board in the first period when Jeff Cowles poked in a rebound for a 1-0 advantage. The Eagles killed off a penalty later in the period, but Braintree tied it up shortly after when Kevin O'Brien stuffed home a shot on the short side to tie it 1-1 with 2:34 left in the first.
St. John's Prep coach Kristian Hanson believed the Eagles weren't prepared to play against the tenacious Wamps. "Give credit to Braintree," said Hanson. "They worked hard and grinded out a tough point. There's no question we had chances. We just weren't prepared to play. I take responsibility for that. I think we thought that we're 13-2-3 coming in and we can just show up and win. We don't to be prepared and we don't have to work hard and we don't have to do the little things we have to do: We don't have to crash the net and clearly you have to do that.
"I think the worst thing that could have happened to us was to score early. We scored that goal and felt it took the pressure off us a little bit. Instead of pressing to get the next one we were satisfied a little bit and you can't be because I knew the type of team Braintree was going to be. I knew they were going to work very hard and had a good goalie. I knew what the game was going to be like. Obviously I didn't do a good enough job expressing that to my players."
Braintree continued to pursue the puck and Shawn Leslie gave the Wamps their first lead of the contest with 1:42 remaining in the second. Daniel Valicenti got off a quick pass to Leslie near the right faceoff circle and he wristed a shot past Martin on the short side for the 2-1 lead. Braintree's lead was short lived as Hennessy put home the tying goal.
McDonough was brilliant in the third as the Eagles worked to put home the winning tally. The Wamps' goalie robbed Paul Edison with a pad save with 8:34 left and came up huge again five minutes later, making a glove save off a hard backhander by Kyle Lynch.
Braintree's Kyle Gray had a bid in front of Martin snuffed out with under a minute to play.
The Wamps more than proved they're able to skate with one of the top tier teams in the state. "That's the fastest team we've played this year" said Fasano. "Once we got into the flow of the game I thought we held our own. There were times when we were running around a little bit, but there were times that we had them running around a little bit too. Overall I'm very happy the way we battled tonight."