Marlborough's Logan Everett races in alone to beat Evan Lockwood to make the score 2-0 in second period action

Photo Credit: Steve Balestrieri

The Rockets missed a golden chance when they couldn't bury the rebound early in the first period

Photo Credit: Steve Balestrieri

Derek Piekarczyk fires a shot but is turned aside, he would score the lone Rockets goal later in the game

Photo Credit: Steve Balestrieri

The Rockets buzz the net but can't score late in the 2nd period

Photo Credit: Steve Balestrieri

AUBURN, Mass. - The Marlborough Boys Hockey team defeated Auburn-Millbury by a score of 4-1 on Saturday night at the Horgan Arena in Auburn.

In a pretty evenly played game, Marlborough capitalized on a few key plays and made the Rockets pay whenever they made any mistakes.

In early play in the first period Auburn came out very physical and was carrying the physical play to the Panthers and that actually cost them. The Panthers Jake Chiasson carried the puck over the Auburn blue line and had his head down. The Rockets Mike Benoit flattened him with a thunderous yet clean check. But for a split second everyone on the ice stopped to watch the hit. But Marlborough's Erik Bastarche picked up the puck in the corner and was able to hit Chiasson, who wristed it by Evan Lockwood for a 1-0 lead.

The score would remain there until halfway through the second period when the Panthers' Logan Everett blocked a shot at the blue line and taking the puck raced all the down the ice and tucked the puck on the stick side of Lockwood to make it 2-0.

The Rockets had a golden chance to narrow the lead with a power play early in the third period when disaster struck. With the puck deep in the Marlborough zone, defenseman Jordan Hanahan tried to clear the puck out of the zone, it trickled down  160 feet to Lockwood who tried to smother it with his glove, and somehow it slid through and barely crossed the goalline to make it 3-0.

That was the back-breaker for the Rockets, because Ben Wichlman was playing really solid in the pipes for the Panthers. Lockwood redeemed himself just a minute later when facing a 3 on 1 Chiasson layed a perfect pass over to Jason Hill who fired one for the top corner, but Lockwood, moving from his left to his right got his shoulder on it to turn it aside.

Auburn finally scored at 8:42 of the third just 14 seconds into their next power play. Hanahan took a bad penalty for going out of his way and charging into a scrum at the blue line and the Rockets wasted little time. Derek Piekarcyzk wristed one into the top corner assisted by Tucker Falk and Justin Huard. Auburn would threaten with some of their best pressure of the game after that but couldn't get through the layers of the Panthers defense.

Marlborough closed out the scoring with just 37 seconds left when Kyle Griffin stole the puck just inside the blue line and put a beauty over the shoulder of Lockwood to make it 4-1.