PROVIDENCE — If you’re a student of hockey history, you knew it was going to come down to something like this.

So what if Mount St. Charles had defeated Hendricken all three times the two archrivals had played during the regular season?

So what if the Mounties had outscored the Hawks 2-to-1 in those three games — 18 goals for the Mount and only 9 for the Hawks?

Last night, it was Mount St. Charles and Hendricken playing in the Division I state-title series and when the Hawks and Mounties meet with the state title on the line anything can happen. And you probably shouldn’t plan on getting an early start heading home.

So it’s probably not surprising that Mount St. Charles needed two goals in the final five minutes for its margin of victory in the 4-2 triumph over the Hawks in the opening game of their best-of-three title series.

“It was a great hockey game,” said Dave Belisle, Mount’s co-head coach with his father Bill.

“Three wins meant nothing tonight,” Belisle said of the Mount’s three regular-season victories.

For two periods last night at PC’s Schneider Arena, it was a game that wasn’t following any previous script.

Mount was a team that constantly outshot the opposition this season, yet 11 minutes into the game the Mounties were being outshot 11-3.

All season, Mount St. Charles didn’t commit a lot of penalties while Hendricken seemed to have trouble staying out of the box. In the 16 regular-season games, Hendricken was assessed 170 penalty minutes while Mount only had 94. But last night in the first two periods, Mount picked up five penalties that gave Hendricken a chance to score two power-play goals.

“We just have to play better in the first period,” said Belisle. “They took it to us in the first period. But it’s the sign of a good team. We bounced back and got the big goal when we needed it.”

Indeed they did. Actually, the Mounties bounced back a few times. First they tied the score in the second period after Hendricken had taken a 1-0 lead with just over six minutes to play in the first period.

Mount took a 2-1 lead a little later in the second session, but Hendricken came back and tied the score again. That set the stage for Mount’s final comeback as it broke the 2-2 deadlock with the two goals in the final five minutes.

All season, Mount proved it knew how to score goals. The one question so many had about the Mounties was could their goalie, Jason SanAntonio, deliver on those few occasions the opposition took more shots than the Mounties?

He’s a junior, but before this season he had played in a only few games and none of them was as pressure-packed as last night’s. Last night, SanAntonio answered any questions about delivering in the clutch. Not only did he make 34 saves, but he made one huge stop on a shot that looked like a sure goal with Mount clinging to a one-goal lead with just over three minutes to play.

“He played great tonight. He made some big saves for us, especially when we took the lead,” Belisle said of SanAntonio.

So they will play again tonight.

If Mount St. Charles wins, it’s all over and the Mounties are back as the Rhode Island ice kings again after a four-year absence from the throne. But if Hendricken evens the series tonight, the teams will be facing a challenge.

Originally, the series was scheduled to have started last Saturday night with an off-day on Easter Sunday and the second game slated for last night. If necessary, a third game would have been played tonight. But when Hendricken and Mount St. Charles became the finalists, the two Catholic schools said they didn’t feel right playing on the eve of Easter.

So the league pushed the start of the series back to last night and scheduled the second game for tonight.

The problem is right now, if a third game is necessary, the Hawks and Mounties are scheduled to come right back to Schneider tomorrow night.

That means a group of teenagers, most of who are 17 or younger, will be playing very physical games on three consecutive school nights.

Somehow, teenagers playing three playoff hockey games on three consecutive school nights doesn’t sound like an ideal situation for a third game.

jgillool@projo.com