By Jack Hooker
Despite being eliminated from the tournament, the Newton South boys’ hockey team feel as though they have accomplished nothing less than a successful season after making the playoffs for the first time in 17 years.
Goals from senior Oleg Musatov and freshman Sergey Bezrukov weren’t enough to advance the Lions past the sectional finals in Saturday night’s 3-2 loss to Wayland at Stoneham Arena.
After going 1-1 with the Lions in the regular season, Wayland, coming off an overtime win against No.1 Watertown, took a quick lead, scoring only 77 seconds into the game.
“We just didn’t have our heads completely in the game,” junior captain Connor Kee said. “We gave the kid that scored way too much room and didn’t challenge him at all. We should have laid a body on him and shouldn’t have given him the chance to shoot that puck.”
The Lions quickly switched goaltenders from sophomore Matt Aviles, who had let in a wrist shot through the five hole, to junior Chris Olsen. South responded back with a goal from Musatov, off of an assist by junior captain Griffin Connolly, tying up the game with 5:49 left in the first period.
The first period ended with a score of 2-1 after Wayland took back the lead just 27 seconds after the Lions scored.
Musatov went down, taking a cheap shot early in the second period, giving the Lions a 5-3 opportunity for just under 15 seconds. The Lions were unable to capitalize on the power play; however, Bezrukov was able to sound the buzzer with a goal off of a rebound with 6:39 remaining in the second period.
Still trailing by one with 2:34 left in the third period, South called a timeout after Wayland had just gone a man down. The Lions were able to generate good opportunities, including four shots on net during the power play as well as pulling their goalie to get an extra skater, but South couldn’t ultimately knot up the game.
“We acted too late and turned up the intensity way too late,” Kee said. “Against good teams like that you have to play a complete 45 minutes and not take a shift off.”
The Lions finished with a record of 15-7-1, winning 14 out of their last 16 games.
“We changed how [students at South] view hockey and really got a lot of people to become interested in it,” Kee said. “We also showed how good we can be if we work hard and I’m sure that will translate into next year.”
Additional reporting done by Taylor Bovarnick and Hannah Clary
