The Bishop Guertin girls hockey players begin celebrating their 8-1 semifinal win on Tuesday night with goalie Scar Casey, much to the chagrin of Bishop Brady-Trinity-Londonderry's Grace Orr at Concord's Everett Arena. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

CONCORD – They tugged, tripped, pulled, and slammed.

The Bishop Brady-Trinity-Londonderry girls hockey team did everything it could Tuesday to send Bishop Guertin High School standout Jenna Lynch crashing to the ice.

But Lynch and the Cards got the last laugh as they put the BLT co-op’s season on ice. The senior scored five goals in the Cards resounding 8-1 win in the NHIAA semifinals. No. 1, 15-2-3 Guertin will now face No. 2 Oyster River-Portsmouth in Saturday’s finals at SNHU Arena.

“I feel great, I’m so excited,” said Lynch, who got her share of bumps and bruises and seemed dazed late in the second period by a penalized hit but was no worse for wear. “When you get ahead, and teams don’t know what to do, that’s what they’re gonna do, they’re going to play dirty. But we kept composed, we knew we couldn’t retaliate. We just kept our cool and it showed on the scoreboard.”

Lynch couldn’t wait for this game, after she first missed the Senior Night game due to injury in which BLT stunned the Cards, 4-1, a month ago. And she also missed Guertin’s suspenseful 3-2 quarterfinal win this past Friday over the Keeene co-op. It took her just over four minutes to get untracked for the game’s first goal, and she scored two more in the second and two more in the third.

Not bad after BTL was trying to hunt her down.

“We kind of expect that every time we come out, that they come after her, and she’s ready for the challenge each time,” Cards coach Phil DeVita said. “She knows it, we know it, and she rises to the occasion. It (the five goals) is a great way to answer that.”

“When we beat them a couple of weeks ago it was a tight game,” Brady-Trinity-Londonderry coach Dan Earley said. “Today was a totally different team. They played aggressive, dumped the puck in and chased it, put pressure on our ‘D’ and we just couldn’t hold them back.”

After Lynch’s opening goal, assisted by Carly Green, BTL knotted things on a power play goal by Evey Heppler, 1-1, but the Cards got the lead back with their own power play tally by Haley Gagne, assisted by Tessa Wilkie and Friday’s hero, Riley Goldthwaite, at 13:20 of the period. That was huge as Guertin seized momentum and never lost the lead.

“I thought we responded outstanding,”DeVita said. “The girls have been really working hard, they didn’t get down, they were ready for this game. They knew they would meet that challenge, there was no doubt.

“That (late goal) definitely helped our momentum and get the girls ready to go. We knew if we played our hockey, good things would happen.”

Jasmine Shattuck kept those good things happening just 24 seconds into the second on the power play, assisted by Jill Scanlon and Aine Kelly, to make it 3-1. Lynch had an unassisted goal a minute later and by the end of the second period, it was 6-1, game basically over. Four goals in the period, a stark contrast to the scoreless second period in the quarterfinal that almost got BG ousted.

“We wanted to make amends for that second period in the last game,” DeVita said. “We said ‘Rise to the occasion’ and they did, they came out stronger than we did in the first period and really put pucks to the net.”

They did that, as BTL goalie Kacey Yorston had 29 saves. The rest of the BG scoring column: Scanlon and Shattuck added assists, Gracie Menicci had three assists, and Carly Green with two assists. Scar Casey only had to stop five shots.

The only scary moment came with just 2.6 seconds left in the second, when Lynch was slammed into the boards by BLT’s Alison Pelletier. Remember, there’s no checking allowed in girls hockey, so Pelletier received a five minute boarding penalty plus a 10-minute misconduct. Lynch seemed shaken up, but there she was taking the ice after the intermission to start the third – and add two more goals.

“There was contact, it’s playoff hockey,” DeVita said. “We lost to them early in the season and they came ready to play BG hockey – which is out of the gate quick, up and down, we played good two-ways.”

Now the Cards, who won it all two years ago, are back at SNHU Arena for the first time since they lost to Hanover in the 2009 finals. Their 2021 title was at Dover Ice Arena, and this win helps erase the bitter taste of last year’s semis loss to Hanover.

“Last year was devastating,” Lynch said. “We’re so excited to be back (in the finals), and we just want to show the whole state that we’re the best.”