St Sebastians School - Arrow Yearbook (Newton, MA)

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early whistle, Vin inserted Bob Murphy and, almost as soon as he appeared on the ice, the Red and Black leader hung up his first goal of the second half. The register was a solo affair on which Bob carried in close and whistled home the rubber. Before the period ended, however, the Green sex- tet evened matters, 'Dubber Doyle lighting the lamp on an assist from Foley. With the deadlock continuing late into the middle stanza, we realized that this game was not to be a repetition of our easy victory over the same team early in the season. We had further anxiety at 8:45 when the resourceful O'Grady back-handed a savage score that gave Stoneham a 2-1 edge. Then, to make matters worse, the Doyle-Foley combination rang the bell again at 3:30 of the final peri- od and our stock took a nose-dive. Finally, we did get something to cheer about, three minutes later, when Joe Deignan stationed himself at the enemy cage and sent home a Boyle-Egan pass to rack up our second tal- ly. At this point, in keeping with his ex- perimental policy, the coach shuffled his line-up, puttitfg Murph back on defense for a rest and moving Gibby up to the forward line. The move paid rich dividends in the closing seconds of the fray. We had been keeping the pressure on the rival citadel and Murph in particular had been bombard- ing the goalie with fierce drives that just failed to tally. There were exactly 15 sec- onds left when Jack Boyle let go a long shot that was stopped by the mass of Green and Red and Black players milling around the net. Suddenly, out of the crowd, Bill Gib- bons emerged with the rubber and had no trouble sliding it home from 10 feet out. Although it was his first goal of the year, it could not have come at a better time, for it saved us the humiliation of a second defeat and salvaged a consoling tie out of what threatened to be a stinging loss. The post- mortems among the fans brought out the fact that Mondays were certainly not our days-and they were more than able to sub- stantiate their statements. On February 8th we were glad to return to a Saturday night affair with St. Mary's of Lynn and to find it the breather that was expected. Without losing any time, Egan and Murphy spearheaded the attack, the former tallying with the aid of the latter and the latter registering unassisted at 3.42 of the initial session. Shortly thereafter, Lynn was awarded a penalty shot and, sur- prisingly enough, was able to convert it into their solitary score of the game. It was not of too great concern, however, because, in rapid succession, Boyle, Gibbons and Egan found the range and, when we skated off the ice at the end of the first ten minutes, Bruce Harrigan was the only starter who had failed to score. With a comfortable lead to work on, the reserves took over the fort in the second period and our only offensive gain was a Murphy register that swelled our margin to 6-1. Playing out the string, we picked up two more in the last chapter, Gibby doing a beautiful solo and Egan lash- ing home an opportune feed from jack Boyle. When the tiny diapers came on, it was a treat to watch the Red and Black de- fensemen set them up with passes time and time again. Although they failed to score, they came close time and time again, Mur- ray Regan being outlucked on several oc- casions. The regulation schedule reached its end when we faced off against St. Clement's and encountered the same alert opposition that gave us a hard time to win 3-2 in the first half. In many respects, the game took on the nature of a welcome tune-up for the play-off contest that had just been an- nounced for the following Monday. Dur- ing the pre-game locker room session, the coach asked for a quick-jump that would lessen the tension and afford our play-off rival scant consolation. As events turned out, it was fortunate that we did get an early lead, because St. Clement's fought hard all through the fray. Bob Egan start- ed the ball rolling at 1:27 of the first period when he tucked a Murphy pass high into

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EMERGENCY Bruce leaves the cage to fall on a rolling puck against Sr. Clements. ,K L. U . , A 3 I.: K E Q REBOUND Deignan follows up Z1 Murphy bullet in the -if ,3jiim. game that gave us the first-half championship. OPEN SHOT Andy swings the de- fense to menace the St. Clement's cita- del.

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DANGEROUS FACE-OFF Murph vies with Ford of Malden on a face-off in front of our net. the right hand side of the cage. In forty- fnve seconds more we added a second score on Murphy's unassisted effort that blazed its way home from the enemy blue line. At that point, we seemed to lose the charm for no matter how much we peppered Shea, the St. C1ement's goalie, our pains went un- rewarded. Time and time again our for- wards rifled bullets that hit him or the up- rights and yet we were not able to in- crease our margin. During that opening period, when we were besieging the Som- erville citadel and keeping Shea ever alert, the Red and Black put on as line a demon- stration of passing as Catholic League con- tests have ever produced. With us domi- nating the play so completely in the first half of the game, our rivals had little chance of bothering Bruce too much, but, at 5:18 of the middle portion, Plummer hit the bull's-eye and cut our lead to 2-l. Be- fore the session ended, however, Murph gave us back our former edge on a beauti- ful piece of marksmanship. Time was rap- idly running out in the chapter when Bob collected the puck in our zone and began one of his typical hikes. As he swept over the rival blue line, he found himself being forced toward the boards by a rival defense- man. Fading artfully, he bided his time un- til he drew the St. Clement's man over far enough to permit him to bullet a drive that cut into the net just inside the right hand post. This bit of strategy was our last suc- cess of the night and, when Colbert scored for Somerville in the last stanza, it proved to be the deciding marker in our 3-2 vic- tory. After the showers were taken and the equipment was packed, everyone stayed to watch the bitter struggle between Waltham and Malden to determine which sextet would meet us in the play-off. We were more than rewarded by a titanic struggle that ended in a 3-3 tie, but that deadlock was in Malden's favor for it gave Coach Kenty's lads the second half crown by a single point and nominated them to oppose us in the contest that would decide the League championship. Two nights later we were back on the same ice at 6 o'clock to contend with the Malden sextet that had held us to a tie and then defeated us during the regular season. just before the face-off, the Red and Black gliders received a telegram conveying the best wishes of the Headmaster, Fr. Keating, and the members of the Alpine Club who were in New Hampshire on their annual junket. When the puck was dropped to start the proceedings, Bob Murphy won the