CANTON – The Catholic Memorial boys hockey team arrived at Sunday’s annual Catholic Conference Showdown at Canton Ice House in need of a bounce-back in order to keep up in the conference’s title race.

It got just that and more, leaving with a share of the lead.

As St. John’s Prep (6-4, 4-1 CC) dropped a nail-biter to Xaverian in the neighboring rink, the No. 3 Knights (8-4, 4-1) followed their loss to SJP on Wednesday with a 2-0 win over No. 8 BC High.

Drew Karlovits (31 saves) stood on his head all game to keep the Eagles (4-4-2) in it, though CM did the little things well to get goals from freshman Colin Yandle and senior Luke Long in the second and third periods. The Knights limited BC High to just 13 shots on eighth-grade goalie Jaxson Fleming, handing the Eagles their first shutout loss of the year.

The win wrapped Catholic Memorial’s first round of conference play, trailing St. John’s Prep only by tiebreaker.

“It’s a tough league,” said Knights head coach Larry Rooney. “Every game. Every game. … We all get after it with each other. On any given day in any given rink, we’re beatable. And that’s a great thing about this showcase today, is you get to see six good teams competing.”

Karlovits was nails in the first two periods as CM peppered him with 12 shots in each stanza. But with less than two minutes left in the second, Jack McCourt’s screen shielded Karlovits’ vision enough for Yandle’s shot from the outside to get past him.

The sophomore goalie’s play remained steady to keep the deficit at one goal for most of the third, too, but a late Knights 2-on-1 changed that. Long centered a pass to Mike Melvin in wide open space down the slot, and his shot off Karlovits sent a rebound to Long on the right. He scored bar-down for the 2-0 advantage with 3:40 to go.

“We talk about taking away the goalie’s eyes, Jack McCourt did a great job on doing that,” Rooney said. “I think we got a little fortunate on – I think their defenseman stumbled a little bit in the neutral zone, giving up the 2-on-1. But we put the puck on net and that second guy still went to the net on the rebound. Those are the things that we practice all the time, and that’s how the game of hockey is played.”

Although two came on an empty net, the five goals Catholic Memorial allowed to St. John’s Prep marked the most it’s allowed this year. Bouncing back with a shutout against BC High – which scored at least three goals in each of its previous three games – was meaningful.

The Eagles were an inch or a second away from several strong scoring opportunities in an overall positive performance head coach John Flaherty felt there was plenty to build on. But CM’s defense did enough to hold them off this time.

“Right down to the end there, one-goal game, they had pressure on us the first part of that third period,” Rooney said. “But we defended well even with that pressure. We didn’t give up, I don’t think, any Grade-A opportunities. We just mentioned to the boys that they protected our house very well. Right in front of our net, we had five guys back.”