Nashua South-Pelham's Brian Keefe celebrates a goal as MHBDS goalie James Brew looks at the puck in the net during Saturday night's Backyard Brawl finale at Conway Arena. The Kings lost the game 5-4 but got the point they needed to clinch the tourney title. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – The lost the battle but won the Brawl.

That’s how it was for the Nashua High School South-Pelham boys hockey team as they lost to Merrimack-Hollis Brookline-Derryfield 5-4 on Saturday night but still ended up winning the Backyard Brawl Holiday Tournament for the second year in a row at Conway Arena.

How, you say? Simple. All the Kings had to do was get a point for winning either the first or second half, and they left the ice after the first 22:30 with a 2-1 lead. That gave them 7.0 points for the tournament, and the most the WarHawks could muster would be two points to bring them to 6.5.

In fact, the WarHawks knew it near the end of the first half when they pulled goalie James Brew to get six skaters on the ice and try to at least split the half. “It was our only shot,” MHBDS coach Dan Belliveau said. “We knew, it was a couple of mistakes, we want to learn from it. We take a lot of pride in this tournament, we realize it’s for fun, it really doesn’t mean anything in the standings, let’s go out there and keep pushing hard.”

That left Kings coach Jordan Sarracco smiling in between periods. It looked as if his Kings would get all three points as they increased the lead to 4-1 early in the second half only to see the WarHawks score four unanswered to win the game. Mixed emotions for sure.

“They already knew,” Sarracco said of his players. “They had the mindset we aren’t done yet, let’s try to win the whole (game). It’s a little bit of a disappointment to not hold the lead, we would’ve liked to have the thing all the way down to the end and win the game. But it feels good to be repeat champions. After the loss sets in the team will be fairly happy about that.”

Will Farrell and Ale Gertz each scored two goals with an assist to pace the win.

Farrell had scored a power play goal six minutes into the second half to cut the deficit to 4-2, but it was his second goal with 9:54 left that cut things to 4-3, because 11 seconds later Gertz scored to tie it.

The Kings were gassed. “We were running on fumes at the end of it,” Sarracco said. “They (MHBDS) came out strong and they were hungrier than we were. You could tell as soon as they scored that (Farrell’s second) goal, it lit a fire under them, they continued to come after us and we just didn’t have the legs for it.”

And no one could try to knock WarHawk Alex May off the puck when he moved in for a quick wrister that beat Kings goalie Noah Soule with 4:58 left for the game-winner.

“I’m really proud of the way they came together there,” Belliveau said. “We called a time out with roughly 10 minutes left. I pointed out the obvious, there’s still 10 minutes left, it’s 4-2, and we can come back and win this game. … They got fired up a little bit.”

But the first half and into the second was all Kings to earn them the point they needed for the tourney title, buoyed by a hat trick by Brendon Doughty. He pounced on a loose puck and beat Brew nearly five minutes into the period, then scored again 10 minutes later, assisted by Broden Landsteiner for a 2-0 lead, the goal that really won the tourney for them as they took a 2-1 lead into the locker room. Gertz scored with 2:23 left in the half, with one of Jackson Woods’ three assists.

Landsteiner, assisted by Brian Keefe and Gavin Asimakopulos on the power play made it a 3-1 game two minutes into the second half, and Doughty got his hat trick on a 5-on-3 with a second assist by Asimakopulos less than a minute later. But the 4-1 lead wouldn’t last. Battle lost, brawl won.

ALVIRNE-MILFORD 9, NASHUA NORTH-SOUHEGAN 5

Brendan Callahan scored four goals while Dylan Macleod, Braydon Atwood, Brandon Ganas and Ryan Ricard had single goals to give the Admirals at least one win in the three-day tournament.

Chris Boza, Ganas, Bryce Larco (two), Evan Pargas and Ricard has assists; Mson Komarek and Ari Scarbro combined for 30 saves in goal.

Brody Sice had a goal and an assist to lead the Saber-Titans, whose other goals came from Connor O’Neil, Callen Cullity, Conor Prunier and Christian Miller. Andrew Cullinane added an assist. Tony Venzia saw the bulk of the time in goal.

The Admirals won the first half 7-1 and the game to grab two points, but the Saber-Titans outscored them 4-2 in the second half to steal a point and third place in the tourney.

FINAL TOURNEY STANDINGS

1.Nashua South-Pelham (2-1), 7.0. 2.MHBDS (2-0-1) 6.5. 3.Nashua North-Souhegan (0-2-1), 2.5. 4.Alvirne-Milford (1-2) 2.0.