The WA Girl’s Ice Hockey team had an unfortunate loss against Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School (LS) at Nashoba Valley Olympia on Thursday, Jan. 9. Although the game was a shutout, leaving the final score at 3-0, WA still put up a good fight. This loss now leaves their season record at 2-6.
On the initial puck drop, WA quickly swept the puck toward Lincoln-Sudbury’s side before being intercepted by LS who moved swiftly down to WA’s end. LS was able to weave through WA’s wall of defense and get multiple shots on goal but none of them made it through sophomore goalie Lexi McDonough who skillfully blocked each attempt.
However, a little more than five minutes into the game, LS was able to slip past WA’s defense and score the first goal.
The rest of the first period was a battle for the puck. Both teams made attempts at goal and the puck was constantly moving from one end of the rink to the other. With both teams having equal amounts of time on offense and defense, the first period came to a close with the score 1-0 with WA trailing just behind LS.
“Defensively I think we did well on back checking, and in the offensive zone we did well [on] screening the goalie,” McDonough said.
Moving into the second period, WA tried to tighten up their defense but a falter led to LS scoring yet another goal, upping the score to 2-0.
However, even with Lincoln-Sudbury’s lead, WA did not back down on their defense. The entire second period was a fight for the puck, and the defensive strategy was prominent on both teams. Halfway through the period, sophomore captain Kiley Carmichael had several tries on goal before the puck was swept up by LS again and moved down the ice to junior goalie Keira Tucker.
“We were able to transition back into our defensive zone from the offensive zone well,” Carmichael said.
After several more attempts on goal from both WA and LS, and an impressive between the legs save from Tucker, the second period came to an end with the score still at 2-0.
Coming back onto the ice after the game’s last intermission, WA was more aggressive than before, making the last period the most interesting to watch. Both teams yet again battled over the puck and were able to get more tries on goal. Tucker showed a lot of strength and determination to prevent LS from scoring during a dramatic save that resulted in both WA and LS players piled on top of each other in front of the goal.
The aggressive defense worked in WA’s favor for the first ten minutes of the last period until LS was able to slip past and score their third goal of the game with just 5:53 left on the clock.
The last few minutes of the game were filled with intensity from both teams. WA continued putting in their best effort to block LS from scoring another goal. With a few more attempts on goal from WA, the game came to a close with a final score of 3-0 in favor of LS.
“We play really strong teams so [losing a game will] happen a lot, [but] we have great goalies and so we’re just working and practicing with [ the players to] improve their passing and their hustle,” head coach Jim Geraghty said.
WA’s next game will be an away game on Wednesday, Jan. 15 against Waltham High School at 7:00 p.m.