By ERIC BENEVIDES

Sports writer

WOONSOCKET -- It didn’t take any fiery oratory or words of wisdom from Mount St. Charles Academy head coach Bill Belisle or assistant coach Dave Belisle to inspire the Mounties to come back from a 2-0 deficit and produce their biggest comeback victory of the season.
Rather, it was the sight of one of their teammates, senior defenseman Dustin Picard, lying on the ice after striking his head on it in the second period and getting carted off the ice on a stretcher and toward a nearby ambulance, that fueled their fire.
After the Mounties came back to tie the score before the end of that period, they ruled the final 15 minutes, scored four times (three of them power-play goals), and skated to an exciting 6-2 triumph before a full house at Adelard Arena.
Sophomore forward Trevor Plante netted a pair of goals during the Mount’s third-period eruption, and senior goaltender Jason San Antonio, who came into the game in relief of starting netminder Zach Leduc, turned away all 24 shots he faced in a brilliant showing.
But the story of the contest for the Mounties (14-3 overall) was the injury to Picard, who with 10:33 to play in the middle period and MSC down by a 2-1 score, hit the ice after a mild collision with a CM player and struck it with the back of his head.
Dave Belisle was the first person on the ice to check on his veteran player, who sat up on the ice before lying down, and the contest was delayed for 20 minutes as Belisle and a group of medics tended to Picard before he went to the hospital.
“He suffered another concussion,” said Belisle, who noted that Picard had a concussion earlier in the season and two last winter. “He lost consciousness and he lost some breath for a while. It was a very dangerous situation, and knowing the history of concussions, Dustin probably won’t be able to play for the rest of the season.”
The Mounties were glum and down as they watched their teammates on the ice, but they were far from out. They tied the score less than three minutes later on Evan Hoffman’s score (assisted by Tim Doyle and John Lace), and then took over the game in the third period.
“I think everyone just said, ‘You know what? Let’s just play,’ ” said Belisle. “We didn’t play well at all and we played emotionless in the first period, but we played with so much emotion in the second and third. We cried because we know that’s it for Dustin this year and we dedicated the game to him.”
Even though this victory was a non-league triumph that doesn’t affect them in the Division I race, it was a very big one for the hosts, especially since it comes against a CM team that’s now 7-5-4, but plays in the ultra-powerful Catholic Conference and is ranked first in the Eastern Mass. polls.
Like the Mounties, the Knights have a proud history that includes 16 state titles, six national championships, and a handful of alumni that played in the NHL, such as former Boston Bruins forward Ted Donato and former Calder Trophy (Rookie of the Year) winner and veteran goaltender Jim Carey.
“Catholic Memorial always brings a lot of people to this building,” admitted Belisle. “They have a great history, a great program, and a great coach (Bill Hanson), and if you don’t get up for them, you’re going to end up trailing like we did at the end of the first period. 
“You look at our schedule and you have to stop right at Catholic Memorial sitting right there. That’s a very important game for us because that tells us how really good we are, and right now, we’re good.”
One of the Knights’ marquee players is their lone Rhode Islander on their roster, junior center and co-captain Derek Colucci, who hails from Scituate and comes from a hockey family that skated for MSC in the late 1970s and early ’80s, such as his father, Tom, and uncles Steve and Jim.
Colucci, who leads CM in scoring with 13 goals and 14 assists, netted both of the Knights’ goals in the final 4:23 of the first period and helped the West Roxbury prep school maintain its pressure on the Mounties throughout that period and enjoy a 16-9 advantage in shots on goal.
Twenty-eight seconds into the second period, the Mounties cut their deficit in half on a goal by Kyle Beauchamp that was set up by Plante and Picard, but four minutes later, Picard went down with his injury -- probably for the final time this season.  
“I can’t tell you we changed this or we changed that in between periods,” admitted Belisle. “The only thing we changed was our emotion, and I think you saw it in our play. We had hop in our step, our shots were quicker, our passes were crisp, and our hits were harder.”
Belisle did switch goaltenders after the first period, inserting San Antonio after Leduc played well in the first period and stopped 14 shots.
“Zach played well, but we weren’t playing well in front of him,” admitted Belisle. “We were just leaving him out to dry, so we said, ‘You know what? You don’t want to play hard Zach? We’ll throw the other guy in there.’
“It had nothing to do with Zach. If it wasn’t for Zach, it could have easily been 4-0 or 5-0 in that period, but I just went on a hunch, put Jason in, and figured maybe it would give us some sort of emotional lift and it did.”
The Mounties netted their go-ahead goal 54 seconds into the final period on a score by defenseman James Golden. Tim Coffey won a faceoff near CM’s net and dished off the puck to Golden, who ripped a slap shot that squeezed into a space between the left post and the left pad of CM goalie Tom Knox.    
Plante then made it a 4-2 contest at 7:51 by stealing the puck from Knights defenseman Garrett Noonan on the doorstep of CM’s net and getting off a wristshot between two CM players that rose past Knox and zipped under the crossbar.
The Mounties (who were outshot by a 40-28 margin) didn’t put the contest away until they produced a pair of power-play goals in the final 1:27 of the contest. Plante’s second goal came at 13:33 off a pass from Beauchamp, and Mike Magerman lit the lamp with 39.7 seconds on the clock.
***
Catholic Memorial  2 - 0 - 0 -- 2
Mount St. Charles  0 - 2 - 4 -- 6
First period: CM -- Derek Colucci (Garrett Noonan, Shane Walsh), 10:37; CM -- Derek Colucci (T.J. O’Brien), shorthanded, 12:50. Penalties: CM, 2-4.
Second period: MSC -- Kyle Beauchamp (Trevor Plante, Dustin Picard), power play, :28; MSC -- Evan Hoffman (Tim Doyle, John Lace), 7:21. Penalties: CM, 3-6; MSC, 4-8.
Third period: MSC -- James Golden (Tim Coffey), power play, :54; MSC -- Trevor Plante (unassisted), shorthanded, 7:51; MSC -- Trevor Plante (Kyle Beauchamp), power play, 13:33; MSC -- Mike Magerman (Ryan Levesque, Brian Campbell), power play, 14:21. Penalties: CM, 4-8; MSC, 2-4.
Shots on goal: Catholic Memorial 40, Mount St. Charles 28. Goalie saves: CM -- Tom Knox (22 saves); MSC -- Zach Leduc (first period, 14 saves-16 shots), Jason San Antonio (second and third periods, 24 saves-24 shots).