PEABODY – Knowing many of them since they were about 7 years old, Peabody/Lynnfield/North Reading girls hockey head coach Michelle Roach has a special connection with her 10 seniors.

It came to little surprise for Roach to see the crew anchor the No. 12 Tanners in their Div. 1 first-round matchup Wednesday night, holding off No. 21 Waltham in a 2-0 win at James McVann-Louis O’Keefe Memorial Rink to advance in the state tournament.

Senior goalie Alyse Mutti posted 11 of her 24 saves in the first period as part of her 11th shutout on the year, backing goals from senior Shirley Whitmore and senior Chloe Gromko against a Hawks group that entered with high energy and plenty of upset potential.

Waltham ends a strong season at 13-6-2, while PLNR plays the winner of No. 5 Archbishop Williams and No. 28 Brookline in the second round.

“That’s one of the things that really helps us in moments like these, we have 10 seniors,” Roach said. “They have played through a lot of this. So, there’s some general nerves that we didn’t have to work through with the senior class. … They did really well.”

Matching energy and starting off strong are two major focal points for the Tanners, and they got both to set the tone early.

Waltham eighth-grader Molly Whittier came out of the opening faceoff hot, splitting defenders in the first 30 seconds down the slot for a grade-A bid on Mutti. Mutti gloved the low shot, and junior Eleni Spack threw a pass down the gut to Whitmore for a breakaway that she finished off only 13 seconds later.

Just like that, PLNR led 1-0 less than a minute in.

“We have a lot of speed, so (Whitmore) was able to get behind them and get that shot on net,” Roach said. “I think that was a big goal. … We started strong, we set the tone, and I was really happy we were able to do that here.”

Waltham brought plenty of heat on Mutti from there, out-shooting PLNR 11-9 in the first with several promising rushes. A PLNR hooking penalty midway through led to extended time for the Hawks in the offensive zone, too, but Mutti made four saves and the defense blocked three shots to kill it off.

Momentum swung again over the last few minutes of the first period into the second. PLNR’s Gromko, senior Leah Buckley and Spack headlined a defensive effort that limited Waltham to only four shots on Mutti in the second, while the Tanners attack applied wave after wave of pressure in a 9-4 shots-on-goal advantage.

One of them came from Gromko, who used great patience at the left point to time a shot she could get through traffic. She hammered it in with 5:29 left for a huge insurance goal and the 2-0 lead.

“She was actually talking to the forward,” Roach said. “She gave them the puck, she asked for it back, she was able to move the Waltham girl in front of her, and just the patience to be able to take that shot. You could just see through from where we were on the bench that it was going straight through.”

While Waltham dialed up the pressure again with a nine-shot third period, the PLNR defense continued to limit dangerous chances on Mutti in a strong finish.

“We play defense first, and we talked about that,” Roach said. “We went to stay-at-home D, third forward high, making sure that our back-check game is our strongest game. They really responded well to that. And then we went to a dump-and-chase to try to tire them out, which I think we did a good job trying to do that.”

Waltham’s Miyana Bahl finished with 22 saves in a quality performance to keep the Hawks close.