WOBURN – Woburn junior goalie Adam Gerry picked a great time to stand on his head Saturday afternoon.
Behind a sensational, 44-save performance that saw Gerry withstand at least a dozen shots over the last three minutes, the No. 11 Tanners (12-2-1, 8-2-1 Middlesex League) blanked league-leading Reading, 2-0, to split the season series after dropping Round 1 by three goals.
Two goals from freshman Jameson Needham were all the Tanners needed, pulling them within two points of the Rockets (10-2-2, 9-2-1 ML) in the Liberty title race – which Belmont and Arlington are also well within reach of.
Woburn controls its own fate with Winchester, Belmont and Arlington left on its league schedule.
“We just battled a lot better than we did the first time (against Reading),” said Tanners head coach Jim Duran. “We’re a better team now than we were then. … It was a great win for us, we still have league hopes to get a league title. They’re thin, but we’re trying to hold onto it.”
Needham got Woburn on the board in the first 28 seconds, sniping a goal past Owen Holland (16 saves) from the left circle on the game’s first shot. Reading responded with a 16-shot first period, setting the tone for at least 10 shots on Gerry in each frame.
The Tanners defense did well to limit the quality of many of those shots, keeping Reading to the outside while quickly clearing rebounds and restricting opportunities in front. But there were still several moments Gerry needed to come up clutch with a high-quality save, and he was especially put to the test in the final three minutes.
With 2:28 to go and the lead at 2-0, a Woburn penalty gave Reading over a minute of a 5-on-3 opportunity, which turned into a 6-on-3 by pulling Holland out of a timeout.
Reading fired a three-shot frenzy on Gerry three separate times the rest of the way. He stopped them all while Jack Lee, Matt Hughes and Needham did well to kill the penalties.
“All that play at the end, (Gerry’s) got to be your best player and that’s what he was,” Duran said. “We thought we minimized their chances maybe shooting from the outside, but they’re such a good team, they’re on you all the time. … (In) a 6-on-3, (a frenzy is) going to happen. But our guys held their ground, we had a ton of blocked shots. And (Gerry) came up huge.”
Reading’s late surge made Needham’s second goal all the more important for some insurance.
He held the puck at the left doorstep as Holland dropped down to his knees, carried it around him in front to the other side and potted the 2-0 lead with 6:24 to go.
“He has the poise to hold it, most guys would just kind of chip it on net there,” Duran said. “He can finish. It hurt us last week not having him, he was out sick. He was sucking it up today.”