Spaulding goalie Cash Mayo makes a save under heavy pressure during Wednesday night's Division II semifinals at Concord's Everett Arena. (Photo by Al Pike/Seacoast Media Group)

CONCORD – Three is better than one, and the Merrimack-Hollis Brookline-Derryfield co-op hockey team is in the Division II finals — the same place Merrimack alone was two years ago.

That’s because the No. 5 WarHawks shocked No. 1 Spaulding, 5-1, in Wednesday’s semifinals at Everett Arena.

“I think our team played wonderful,” said MHBDS coach Dan Belliveau. “Defensively, we executed our game plan to the T. We wanted to shut them down defensively. Obviously, they’ve got some powerhouse scorers on their team. We wanted to make sure that they didn’t get clean looks whenever we could and get on them. Our goalie (James Brew) was on top of his game. He can make saves that can win us games.”

After making an unexpected run to the Division II final last season the top-seeded Red Raiders’ bid to reach back-to-back championship games fell short.

“We were going to have a target on our back every single game this year just because of what we did last year, and I think we did well advancing with that,” said Spaulding co-captain Ryan Dube. “But at the end of the day we couldn’t get the job done. No one expected us to get to the playoffs last year. A lot of people hopefully expected us to pass this year from what we did last year. It was a great year. I’m really proud of all the guys. They did a great job.”

MHBDS (14-5-2), which is 7-1-1 in its last nine games, will next face St. Thomas Aquinas of Dover for the D-II title Saturday at SNHU Arena in Manchester. The Saints won a dramatic 6-5 overtime in the semifinal nightcap at Everett.

Spaulding (16-4), which defeated MHBDS 4-0 early in the regular season, never led in this one. The Red Raiders trailed 1-0 after the first period, 3-0 at the end of two and 4-0 early in the third.

Alex May, Felix Rattunde, Alex Gertz and Caleb May scored for the WarHawks. Senior goalie James Brew made 23 saves and Spaulding freshman Cash Mayo made 17. Merrimack outshot the Red Raiders, 24-22.

Senior defenseman Hunter Peplinski scored the Red Raiders’ only goal early in the third period on a shot from the left point with an assist going to senior Owen Nesbitt.

It came just 16 seconds after the Warhawks’ Alex May had given his team a 4-0 lead with a power play goal early in the third. May finished with a goal and an assist as did teammate Jackson Hatfield.

“I don’t think they outplayed us,” said Spaulding coach Jamie Ferullo. “Credit to them, I thought they did a really nice job sticking to their game plan and doing the things that they wanted to. We had a ton of opportunities. Their goalie made some huge saves. We kept the puck moving. We just had a couple plays not go our way today.

“They had some big defensemen that kept the puck to the outside but I thought we did what we wanted to do today. We just didn’t get the job done.”

Trailing 4-1 early in the third period, the Red Raiders had their best chance to get back in the game, but they failed to convert on back-to-back power plays.

“I definitely think we should have scored on at least one of them,” Dube said, “but at the end of the day we just couldn’t get the job done. It was tough but you can’t do anything about it now.”

“They blocked shots,” Ferullo said of Merrimack-HB-Derryfield. “They sacrificed. They made plays that they had to. We executed a lot of what we were trying to do, and we gave ourselves a ton of opportunities. That’s the way it was the whole night.”

Rattunde gave the victors a 1-0 lead just 1:30 into the game with an unassisted goal. MHBDS, which beat finals opponent STA 5-2 back on Feb. 8, made it 2-0 early in the second period when Gertz pounced on the rebound of a Will Farrell shot.

Caleb May’s goal made 3-0 with 1:44 remaining in the second period. The teams traded goals early in the third to make it 4-1 and Hatfield scored a power play goal at 7:58 of the third to complete the scoring.

“It’s incredibly disappointing,” Ferullo said of the loss. “The kids played tremendous today and they did all year. They rallied around their teammates. Last year we were the underdog. I felt like people didn’t respect a lot of our players. We played well tonight and the kids are going to walk away with their heads held high.”

Mayo replaced junior Collin McIntyre, who had been suspended for two games.

“We were aware that they had their backup goalie in,” Belliveau said. “Kudos to him. He played well. We knew we had to put shots on net. We weren’t as concerned about the volume as we were making sure we put them on the net. We were trying to take advantage of his inexperience.”

And now the Hollis Brookline-Derryfield players will get to experience what a few left from the Merrimack team two years ago already have — a trip to the finals.