Monomoy-Mashpee Cements Cinderella Status In State Tournament

SOUTH DENNIS – Monomoy-Mashpee clung to a 2-1 lead as the scoreboard clock dipped under three minutes against St. John Paul II in the Division 4 boys hockey state tournament’s first round Friday.

The No. 16 Sharks (11-9) had already killed six penalties against the nearby visitors from Hyannis, the No. 17 Lions (12-7-1). At the 2:37 mark in the third period, Monomoy-Mashpee got dinged for another one. They’d have to survive with a disadvantage one more time to escape and advance.

“We sat there and we said, ‘We're 100 percent so far. What's going to change?’” head coach Chris Harlow said. “‘Get the puck out, simplify it and be willing to wear a shot,’ and we did exactly that.”

The Sharks killed that final penalty, then junior Owen Cloney buried an empty-netter in the game’s last seconds to secure the 3-1 round of 32 win. All told, Monomoy-Mashpee allowed zero scores on seven total infractions — 14 combined minutes in the penalty box with two separate instances of five-on-three.

A couple days later, Monomoy-Mashpee assembled an enormous 3-2 upset at No. 1 Stoneham (13-7), upending the division’s first overall seed Sunday on the back of a legendary night from senior goaltender Dom Silvester.

But to get there first, the Sharks had to survive their fouls against the Lions. The performance also included a shorthanded goal by Cloney early in the first period to put Monomoy-Mashpee up 1-0. 

When he and fellow junior Max Cronen are on the ice during a man disadvantage, they don’t think of it as a penalty kill. Rather, it’s the “power kill,” Cloney and Harlow said. It was the power kill that produced Cloney’s shorthanded goal. 

“[Cronen] ate a shot, ate one for the team,” Cloney said. “I called for it and he just sent it to me. I just kept my speed. I knew that that goalie was a little slow, so I did a little forehand-backhand and then just roofed it.”

Knotted at 1-1 after one period, Cronen put Monomoy-Mashpee back up early in the second on a masterful score, gliding through a lane as the Lions sank into a zone defense. 

The flip to the playoff portion of the year — during a week in which the Sharks scrambled to find a place to practice due to the aftereffects of Feb. 23’s blizzard — was no matter to Cloney and Cronen, the team’s leading scorers during the regular season. The Sharks know they can get goals every time the two are out on a shift.

“Anytime they step on the ice, they just have an amazing chemistry together that can't really be matched,” Harlow said.

Monomoy-Mashpee mostly controlled play during the third period until that last infraction with 2:37 left. Inside the locker room at Tony Kent Arena, they had earlier discussed one tremendous recent example to go on for motivation: the United States men’s hockey team, which had just gone 18-for-18 on penalty kills en route to gold at the 2026 Winter Olympics.

“We weren't very nervous,” Cronen said. “We've had a lot of penalty kills throughout the season. We've scored a lot of shorthanded goals, and I feel like we executed pretty well.”

Nothing changed for Monomoy-Mashpee after that final call. It just meant they had to do the same thing they’d already been doing. The Lions used a timeout right before the critical power play.

“We've done it all game,” Cloney said. “It's one more. You can't think ahead to the end. You’ve just got to take it one play at a time. And so it was just line up for that draw, take a breath, take a second, get refocused, because we did it all game. We can get one more.”

The Division 4 round of 32 bout between Monomoy-Mashpee and St. John Paul II was the third meeting between the two Cape and Islands League Lighthouse Division foes. The Sharks, the division winners, had taken both prior games. 

It was also the second game in a row for the Sharks in which they were playing a team for the third time in the season. They finished their regular season slate Feb. 17 with a 5-4 loss to Dennis-Yarmouth/Cape Cod Tech/Cape Cod Academy, whom they had bested twice before as well. That last game was a wakeup call, Cronen said, to turn it around and go into the playoff matchup against St. John Paul II with a different mentality. It worked.

“I feel electric,” he said. “I’m so pumped for the next round, and I'm just so proud of all my teammates.”

The Sharks translated that momentum into Sunday’s bracket-shattering shocker against top-seeded Stoneham, the win cementing Monomoy-Mashpee’s status as Division 4’s Cinderella squad this year. They’ll face No. 9 St. Bernard’s (17-3) in the quarterfinals at a date, time and location yet to be announced as of The Chronicle’s deadline.

In that win against Stoneham, senior Luke Raftery, junior Gavin O’Leary and junior Logan Puma scored for the Sharks. The team blocked 18 shots. 

And again, a parallel to the U.S. men’s hockey came into focus after Silvester made 52 saves on 54 attempts, including 27 in the third period. On X, Stoneham boys hockey’s account determined that they had gotten “Hellebuyck’d,” a reference to the American team’s goaltender Connor Hellebuyck, who was the gold medal team’s maestro. Another round of Olympic comparisons elicited in Monomoy-Mashpee’s favor during the quarterfinals could only mean the 16-seed Sharks are still storming through the tournament.