By Kyle Auger
Sports Editor
Varsity Boys’ hockey has historically been one of Westford Academy’s most successful and popular sports, however this season was a tough one, marred with injuries and underperformance, the team finished with a record of 3-15-3.
The misfortune started early, when last year’s scoring leader Cam MacDonald suffered a broken clavicle early in the year. Also, returning players senior Chris Mahana and junior Ryan Hesseltine had to deal with injuries this year.
“The loss of my [teammate] Cam was a killer for the team’s morale as well. Losing a captain and leading scorer within the first couple games really hurt us and put the team in a tight spot,” said junior Jay Drapeau.
McDonald’s offensive prowess has been clear in this year’s results. In their 21 games, the team only scored 44 goals, while letting up 79.
“Throughout the season the effort from our team had been great; we hadn’t been getting the wins we wanted but were going to keep working hard,” said junior Ryan Hesseltine.
After a successful 13-5-4 campaign last year, a last place finish in the DCL surely stung. The squad scored 36 fewer goals than last year and allowed 27 more. The team was more youth-dominated this year, with the team losing 12 seniors, while only having seven returning players.
“We were just an inexperienced team that caught a lot of tough breaks and had to deal with a lot of injuries,” said senior Chris Ricko.
However, with the team being so young, their future is bright. Another high note for the team was impressive performance all year by some individuals.
Drapeau was selected to the DCL division I all-conference team and all-star team, other all-stars include Drapeau’s senior brother Jack as well as senior Pat O’Neil.
The team is hoping that this season was a small bump in the road so to speak in the team’s future, with talented underclassmen such as freshmen Anthony Gulliver and Kyle Martin, and sophmore Billy McLaughlin.
This time of the year is also more emotional as many of the seniors laced up their skates for the last time.
“Like any senior I’m dissapointed that I won’t be able to play another season but we have alot of good players coming back and can expect to have a good year next year,” said Ricko.
