Last year, the Wilmington boys hockey team demolished Tewksbury, 6-0, in the annual rivalry game. The Redmen can only hope that this year's loss will have similar results.

After the setback to the Wildcats a season ago, the locals went on to a state championship win. Wilmington won again on Wednesday night, closing out the regular season with a 3-1 victory at the Breakaway Ice Center.

"I think we were doing pretty well up until this game, and now this is a bit of an obstacle on the way in to the playoffs," said Tewksbury head coach Derek Doherty. "But we'll definitely fix this problem and go into the state tournament and be prepared."

In the latest installment of the rivalry, Jake Rogers sparked the visiting Wildcats early with a first period goal. Just 40 seconds into the second frame, Cam Owens pushed the edge to 2-0.

Finally in the third frame, Derek Petti gave the Redmen a sign of life when he flung the puck into the upper portion of the net to cut the home team's deficit to 2-1 with 6:50 to play.

But Tewksbury never mounted a serious threat at the equalizer, and Dalton Rolli added the empty netter to seal the victory for Wilmington.

"I thought they pushed us around and outshot us," said Doherty, whose team was outshot 41-16. "They played very well tonight where we came out a little bit sluggish."

Both teams have now concluded their regular season slates and await the Division 2 North brackets, which will be released on Saturday.

"It was a shot at us last year when we went to Wilmington and they beat us up, Similiar thing as they did this year," said Doherty. "We'll make some changes and move forward, and we'll be ready."