Hakon Yeo came out of the locker room wearing the hard hat given to the Cheverus/Yarmouth player of the game, but really, he thought any one of his teammates could’ve been wearing it.
“I earned the hard hat today because we had a good team effort, and I was able to score two goals because of it. Overall, we played really well together,” Yeo said.
Yeo’s two goals helped Cheverus/Yarmouth hold off a young but talented Gorham squad, giving the defending Class B state champs a 4-2 win in a the South final at Cross Insurance Arena, and a trip back to the state championship game.
Cheverus/Yarmouth, now 18-2-1, will play the winner of Wednesday’s North final between Messalonskee and John Bapst in the Class B state championship game, at Cross Insurance Arena at 10:30 a.m. Saturday. Gorham, making its first appearance in the regional final in a decade, ends the season 13-8.
“Cheverus/Yarmouth’s a really good team. They’re experienced. They’ve been here before. They’ve got a lot of skilled guys that get to the net. We knew that going into it,” Gorham coach Shawn Sullivan said. “For most of the game, we did a pretty good job. It was a few things here and there that didn’t go our way, but our guys worked their tails off and played a great game.”
Cheverus/Yarmouth opened the scoring at 13:54 of the first period, when Yeo pounced on the rebound of a Griffin Zinman shot and buried it. Cheverus/Yarmouth made it 2-0 at 5:34 of the second period, this time Trevor Hunt scoring on a rebound of a Cooper Jacobs shot.
“Early on, we were shooting high. We knew that goalie’s (Chris Chesebro) strong,” Yeo said. “We switched to low shots and instantly got results. It shifted the momentum.”
Yeo scored again, this time on a quick wrist shot, at 6:15 of the second, giving Cheverus/Yarmouth a 3-0 lead.
Cheverus/Yarmouth senior forward Owen Walsh said the key was shutting the Rams down in the neutral zone, and focusing on Landan Anctil and Stephen Connolly, Gorham’s top scorers. For the most part, Cheverus/Yarmouth accomplished that, although Anctil broke free for a goal at 8:01 to get the Rams on the board, and Connolly scored at 12:15, cutting Cheverus/Yarmouth’s lead to 3-2.
“I told my guys it could’ve gone either way. We had two or three posts, one puck on the goal line, one roll behind him and we just couldn’t bury it. We have a young group, and we’ll be good to go next year,” Sullivan said.
On the Cheverus/Yarmouth bench, coach Dave St. Pierre kept his team calm.
“We said just get back to your game plan. Keep doing the right things with the puck. Take car of the puck and make good decisions,” St. Pierre said. “Keep working, keep attacking, keep taking good angles on them and we’ll prevail.”
Any momentum Gorham had was short-lived. Walsh’s goal, on another rebound, at 13:36 of the second period gave Cheverus/Yarmouth the two-goal lead it would maintain throughout the third.
“Every coach will tell you, they get really frustrated with high shots. They go in the goalie’s glove and nothing else happens. We’ve been harping on low shots,” St. Pierre said. “We talked to them between the first and second and second and third (periods), you’ve got to get pucks lower on this kid. Get the rebound opportunities.”
Chesebro made 22 saves for Gorham. Ethan Tucker had 22 stops for Cheverus/Yarmouth.
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