Bishop Guertin's James Mantone puts on the brakes just short of Manchester goalie Cam Velez after Velez pounces on a loose puck during Wednesday's game at JFK Coliseum. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

MANCHESTER – They’ve righted the ship, now the Bishop Guertin High School hockey team is set to navigate through choppy waters to establish the best tourney position it can after Wednesday’s 3-0 win over the Manchester Kings at JFK Coliseum.

“It was a big win for us, gives us that ninth win,” said Guertin coach Gary Bishop, whose team got two goals from Joe Dekarski. “We’re still fighting; we could go anywhere from No. 6 to 11. We still have Bedford, Salem (at home) and (at) Exeter. We’ve got three games left that are really tough.”

The Cards are hoping to climb up to fifth, as the top five get a first-round bye. Otherwise BG would have to play in the prelims. It looks right now like a battle with Hanover and Bow for that fifth spot, and in case of a tiebreaker, BG has beaten both.

But we’re 10 days away from all that being settled. First thing was first, and that was the Cards coming out and snapping a two-game losing streak in what had been their house of horrors; the last time they played at JFK they laid an egg, handing Trinity one of their three wins back on Jan. 6.

Not this time vs. the Manchester Central-West-Memorial co-op. BG had the energy edge from the start, even though they didn’t score in the first period. But they got two goals in the second period, Dekarski scoring on a scramble in front of Kings goalie Cam Velez at 4:14, and then Cam Miller firing a shot from the point seven minutes later that Velez seemed to slow down only to see it trickle in underneath him. Aidan Kelly assisted on both goals while Ryan Lokken assisted on the first.

That was big, as Manchester was riding high on a three-game winning streak, including just having pelted Nashua South-Pelham 7-0 on Monday. But after Tuesday off, the Kings seemed to take their throne for granted.

“I thought they would come back today with a better effort,” Manchester coach Jeremy Baker said. “It took us awhile to get going. … We seem to struggle when it comes to the top teams. We don’t match their engine level sometimes. They’ve been told that all year long. …

“I thought we came out with better effort in the third period. I questioned their character in the locker room.”

And early in that third period, about a minute in, the Kings got a breakaway by the speedy Ryan Marden. But Guertin goalie Conor Hayes basically smothered the puck, one of his 24 saves in getting the shutout.

“He made a couple of nice saves all game long,” Bishop said.

The Kings played a penalty-free game. But on the flip side, they went 0-for-3 on what was a power play in name only.

“I think they might have outshot us on the power play,” Baker said.

And the Cards later scored during the Kings last man advantage, which was created by pulling Velez, as Dekarski sent the puck down the ice into the empty net at 13:03. Gavin Santos got the assist.

It wasn’t all rosy in Bishop’s mind. He feels his team could have scored more, especially in the first.

“I liked the way we had pressure in the zone and contained them in the zone,” he said. “I’m just disappointed in the amount of passing. We didn’t pass the puck very well. In a game like this, people get greedy.”

And Bishop says his team really isn’t all that greedy when it comes to where they finish.

“I want to be someplace above 11,” he said with a smile.

It’s that time of year.

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