Bishop Guertin goalie P.J. Benites makes one of his 19 saves, this one on Bedford's Jack Dermody, during the Cardinals' 4-0 win over the Bulldogs Saturday at Skate 3. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

TYNGSBOROUGH, Mass. – Sometimes it’s not so much how you finish, but how you start.

Yes, that goes against the prevaling opposite theory, but the Bishop Guertin High School boys hockey team used a strong start to get its best win of the season on Saturday, 4-0 over rival Bedford at Skate 3 Arena.

Guertin scored two goals in the first 3:02, the first one coming just 27 seconds into the game off the stick of Johnny Mantone who had a hat trick.

And that’s all the Cardinals would need to even their record at 3-3-2, snap a three-game winless streak, and end a week against strong teams in which they went 1-1-1.

“Tonight I thought we came out and probably played our best period of the year in that first period,” Cards coach Gary Bishop said. “Everybody was skating, all four lines were moving, and we went to the net. Our best period of the year.”

And the Cards proved it by getting the second goal by Logan Vogel, who assisted on the first along with Brian Jenkins, just three minutes later for a 2-0 lead. Another Mantone, James, assisted on that second goal.

“We just weren’t ready to go,” Bulldogs coach Jon Garrity said. “That’s something we talked about that we have to correct, maybe how we warm up, how we prepare for a hockey game, especially against a good team like BG. They’re going to take advantage of it.

“Other than that first period, we played well that second and third period.”

Guertin wasn’t skating as well in the second period,and needed goalie P.J. Benites to help them with saves on breakaways by Bedford’s Brendan Thornton and Jack Dermody. He had 19 stops on the day and was solid, especially in the final few minutes when Bedford pulled goalie Matt Desmond (19 saves) out of the net for the extra attacker.

“He made a couple of nice stops,” Bishop said, as Benites has had teamed with John Casey to form a solid one-two senior tandem in goal,and has actually started the majority of the time.

But toward the end of that second period, Mantone got the all-important third goal to give the Cards some breathing room, on a shot from the outside with just 1:02 left in the middle stanza (Austin Abbott assist) He would later add an empty netter with 54 seconds left in the game.

“He played great today,” Bishop said. “He and Brian Jenkins are really starting to find one another out there, which is key to getting a line working. And Logan Vogel works his tail off in the corners. It’s been a great line for us all year but I thought tonight was their best work of a line altogether.”

“That’s one of those back-breakers, that everybody talks about,” Garrity said of BG’s third goal. “But they kept working, just wasn’t our night with the bounces. The hockey gods will get this back for us someday.”

Meanwhile, Guertin capped off a week against some tough competition, tying Arlington Catholic last Monday, being blanked by Concord Wednesday, and then having to face a solid Bedford team yesterday.

“We’re pretty happy with it,” Bishop said. “I thought we played well against Arlington Catholic, we did not play well against Concord, only took 13 shots.”

But today was a signature win, as it worked out twofold for the Cards, getting them back to .500 and dropping the Bulldogs to 6-2. Plus it’s a win over a program that has matched up with the Cards in some important games over the years and the results haven’t always gone BG’s way. There was a lot of emphasis put on this one.

“Oh yeah, definitely,” Bishop said. “They knew it, they were ready.”