Bishop O’Connell got off to a solid start in front of a home crowd, scoring two goals in the first five minutes of the game and taking that lead into the first intermission. But DeMatha scored six unanswered goals beginning early in the second period and added an insurance goal late to defeat the Knights, 7-3, on Wednesday afternoon at Medstar Iceplex in Arlington, Va.

Sam Segar got O’Connell on the scoreboard just 45 seconds into the game when he took advantage of a defensive turnover and put a backhand shot over the pad of DeMatha goalie Dominc Sciorilli. Max Davies struck at 4:29 after Bryan Wiggins drew two defenders to him and passed off to his unmarked teammate who wristed a shot over Sciorilli’s shoulder.

DeMatha began its comeback at 1:51 of the second when Ryan Trindade put in a rebound of Matthew Hornick’s point shot. Kaleb MacAulay picked up the first of his two assists on the play. Just over two minutes later, Jeremy Wilson tied the game after receiving a pass from the corner by Ryan Arendes and wristing a shot past O’Connell goalie Kieran Sullivan.

The Stags took a 3-2 lead at the ten-minute mark of the second period when Kalen Wells stripped the Knights’ defender of the puck and fed a wide open Bryan Dugan for what turned out to be the game-winner and the first of his two goals in the game.

DeMatha kept up the pressure and added to their lead in the third when Arendes scored two consecutive goals, stuffing home rebounds of shots by Wilson at 2:07 and by Hornick at 3:58.

Bryan Dugan scored less than 20 second later to give the Stags breathing room on their way to the 7-3 victory.

Both goalies were active and made several big saves throughout the game. Sciorilli stopped 26 of 29 shots on goal, while Sullivan made 26 saves on 33 shots.