Nashua North-Souhegan's Christian Miller, left, and goalie Zach Veilleux wear a stunned look after Trinity's game-winning goal Saturday with 1:15 left in OT at Manchester's JFK Coliseum. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

MANCHESTER – They had a 3-0 lead after two periods. Then, after that disappeared, in sudden death overtime, they killed off a combined six minutes in penalties, surviving a two-man disadvantage.

Oh, and they were a shorthanded breakaway shot off the crossbar in OT from winning.

But it just wasn’t meant to be for the Nashua High School North-Souhegan Saber-Titans on Saturday, as they fell 5-4 in OT at the hands of the Trinity Pioneers on a Brennan Walsh goal with 1:15 to go. It was a loss that deals a severe – and perhaps final – blow to their Division I boys hockey tourney hopes.

“Obviously it’s frustrating, obviously it hurts,” North-Souhegan coach Chris Zarlenga said. “This one is going to hurt for awhile no matter what happens, but we come up (today), show up ready to play and go win another game. We’re not going to take our foot off the gas no matter what happens.”

And what could very well happen is that the Saber-Titans will be playing arch rival Nashua South-Pelham tonight at 6:30 at Conway Arena for pride only. Had they won or tied yesterday, plus followed that up with a win tonight, they’d likely be a tourney team.

But if the tiebreakers go the way they normally do, the 7-10 Saber-Titans may not qualify even with a win tonight due to a lesser rating against teams in the tourney. But that is completely and totally unofficial, and will be ultimately decided on Monday by the NHIAA’s hockey committee.

“It’s definitely frustrating, this is a playoff team in my mind,” Zarlenga said. “We deserve to be there. A lot of tough breaks. We’ve lost so many one-goal games (five) this year. Just can’t finish. We fell asleep in the third, and we paid for it.”

Indeed, things were looking up for the Saber-Titans as they had a 3-0 lead after two periods thanks to goals by Jacob Landry in the first, plus Kyle D’Silva and Jake Dodge in the second (Landry, Chase McBride, Callen Cullity, and Brody Sice all with assists).

But the Pioneers got a pair by the dangerous Sam Maurice (hat trick on the day) to close to within 3-2. Landry scored on a shorthanded breakaway at 11:20 of the third to make it 4-2 North-Souhegan, so, hey, all is good, right? Nope. Connor Hurley made it 4-3 for the Pioneers on the same power play and Maurice tied it with a goal with 33 seconds left in regulation. Ouch.

Then their offense was somewhat crippled in the overtime thanks to a hit-from-behind major and also a too-many men on the ice penalty that gave the Pioneers a 5-3 advantage. Target practice on N-S goalie Zach Veilleux (33 saves)?

A bit, but he stood tall and it was Trinity netminder Braedon Lubeicyzk (36 saves) that got a major break as Saber-Titan McBride, as he often has this year, swooped in on shorthanded breakaway with 2:37 left in the OT. Clang went the puck off the crossbar, and the game stayed 4-4.

Then, after a time out, Trinity’s Walsh flipped the puck hard from the blue line in the direction of the net. It deflected fast off a stick, never really seen by Veilleux. Double ouch.

“Senior night, this was their Super Bowl, try to knock us out,” Zarlenga said of the Pioneers. “And they did their job more than we did.”

Up by three. Then 33 ticks away from a win. A crossbar away from a win. Zarlenga called a timeout about 15-20 seconds before the fatal blow. What did he tell his players?

“Gotta go get one,” Zarlenga said. “We needed a win, no matter what. Just a fluke shot off a stick. Zach can’t see it. Nothing you can do.”