Nashua North-Souhegan's Chase McBride takes a tumble over an Admirals player in front of Admiral Ryan Chaisson duirng the Saber-Titans' 3-0 win Monday at Hudson's Cyclones Arena. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

HUDSON – Familiarity, it seems, bred contempt between the Nashua High School North-Souhegan and Alvirne-Milford hockey teams on Monday afternoon at Cyclones Arena.

You see, the Saber-Titans and Admirals were seeing each other for the second time in three days, not typical for a normal season, which this is not.

The result? No fewer than 21 combined penalties, three disqualifications, four misconducts, and last, but not least, a 3-0 North-Souhegan win.

“The kids need to learn how to settle down, and not retaliate,” N-S coach Bill Kotsifas said, his team now 2-1 after three games in four days. “Regardless if you know them, you get mad, you get hit cheaply, you can’t retaliate. You can’t get that second penalty, and you definitely can’t be fighting.”

Most of the skirmishes, and/or jawing directed at referees, took place in the second period. The Titans lost Chris Sweetser and Ryan Ducharme during the game. Ducharme will miss four games while Sweetser may be able to play in this Saturday’s scheduled game vs. Merrimack, according to Kotsifas.

They already were missing Chris Weeden from a DQ that occurred in Friday’s season opener, but he, too, will be eligible to return as of now for Saturday.

As for the 0-3 Admirals, they suffered one disqualification, James Nemeth. Brennan Levesque only drew a 10 minute misconduct for arguing a call.

Admirals coach Dave Thibault felt the Saber-Titans saw a different A-M team than the one that fell 7-1 on Saturday, and that threw everyone off.

“Actually, I think we made some mistakes on Saturday, and I don’t think (the Saber-Titans) were prepared for the team that showed up today,” Thibault said. “We’re a much better team than Saturday, we cleaned up our mistakes, and I think after that 0-0 first period, we had them on their heels. And they realized this wasn’t the same team they saw on Saturday.”

The standout for Alvirne-Milford was freshman goaltender Trent Scarbro, who made 32 stops, a couple of the acrobatic kind. But the Saber-Titans finally got on the board with a power play goal by Danny Quan, assisted by Mike Dodge, at 2:14 of the second.

They made it 2-0 on a Ryan Charest goal, assisted by Ryan Leighton, at 11:01.

Dodge scored a shorthanded goal on a break in at 11:26 of the third. It was a much quieter final period, but the amazing thing was the Saber-Titans were still shorthanded for nine of the 15 minutes – and kept the Admirals off the board. That’s penalty killing at its best.

“That’s all hard work, Kotsifas said.

“We had a short bench,” Thibault said, “and I think stamina toward the end is what got us.

“We hit the (offensive) zone, and I think we psych ourselves out a little bit. But this was a much better effort. We’re happy with the way the team played today.”

Lost in all the extra curriculars was the fact Saber-Titan netminder Colin Duckless had 22 saves in earning a shutout. “He’s been really good,” Kotsifas said. “We talked to him about not dropping so soon; he did it less today and didn’t leave as much room open.”

Kotsifas said he will address the discipline issues with the team, and at the same time feels the last two wins will show how things can be done.

“I’m definitely glad we won, that helps the kids keep focused, keep believing in what you’re telling them, right, and hopefully they’ll believe in what we’re doing and we’ll only get better.”