Anthony Sarno and Nick Keefe, longtime friends and youth hockey teammates from Randolph, have teamed with Braintree’s Nick Blaney to form the state’s most productive trio of forwards.
CANTON -- There’s more to Blue Hills Regional Technical School’s boys hockey team than its top forward line.
There’s senior Cam Doherty, the Warriors' No. 1 goalie. There are the durable Top 4 on defense, led by big Jeremy Peltier, a senior alternate captain from Milton. There are energetic, effective second and third lines.
But on nights like Wednesday, when an opponent like Upper Cape Regional will not go away, it sure is nice to have Nick Blaney, Anthony Sarno and Nick Keefe.
The state’s most prolific line (162 points through 18 games) provided all five goals in a 5-4 Mayflower League victory, with Blaney scoring shorthanded and on the power play, Keefe putting the Warriors (12-5-1 overall, 9-2-1 league) ahead to stay, 4-3, late in the second period, and Sarno pushing his tops-in-the-state point total to 61 with his 27th goal and assists Nos. 32-34.
“If you were going to make a line, each of them has the attributes you’d want,” said Blue Hills coach Jerah Bonham. “I give them a ton of ice, obviously, and they just play really well together.”
The all-senior line arrived at Blue Hills with some pre-mixed chemistry: Sarno, the speedy center, and Keefe, the energetic right wing, grew up playing youth hockey together in Randolph.
“Me and (Keefe) have been best friends since we were 5,” Sarno said. “Since we’ve come here, everything has kept clicking.”
Bonham, a Marshfield High assistant coach from 2000-2014, got to Blue Hills just as Sarno, Keefe and a few other freshmen arrived. He gave Blaney (Braintree) a shot with Sarno and Keefe, and the trio has been nearly inseparable since.
“We had to break them up a little bit in the first couple of years,” Bonham said, “but for the most part they’ve been our go-to goal-scorers since they got here.
“We felt from the start that we knew what we had. It was just a matter of when they got older, bigger, stronger.”
Left wing Blaney (20 goals, 32 assists, 52 points this season) is the biggest.
“Sometimes I’m just going to the net, some nights I need to hold the puck a little longer,” the co-captain said. “It can depend on the game.”
Sarno, a co-captain whom Bonham calls “the difference-maker,” sees his role as “helping out the defense down low, making a breakout pass, moving up into the play, hopefully getting the puck back, then setting something up in the zone.”
Keefe (17-32—49) is more than happy to see the puck on long-time friend and teammate Sarno’s stick.
“Get that puck to Anthony off the breakout,” Keefe said, “and then get myself to the net. That back door is open all the time.”
On the blue line, Peltier teams with sophomore Brendan Spinale (Canton) on the Warriors’ top pairing. Throw in a solid second tandem of sophomores John Diletizia (Canton) and Joe Picard (Braintree), and Doherty is kept pretty well protected. Said Bonham: “He’s very hard to score against on most nights."
The length of the Warriors’ stay in the upcoming MIAA Div. 3 South playoffs, however, depends largely on whether an opponent can figure out a way to contain the Blaney-Sarno-Keefe trio.
“They’ve been shut out occasionally, but not all that often,” Bonham said. “We pretty much go as far as that line takes us.”