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By Josh Perry
Hometown Weekly Staff
The Medfield High girls’ hockey team had not won a playoff game in program history until last year’s surprise run to the Div. 2 semifinal game. Having gotten the first tournament win under its belt Medfield now expected to be able to make another run this winter.
The Warriors won the opening two games, including an exciting third period comeback against Archbishop Williams in the previous round, but on Saturday night at Gallo Ice Arena, Medfield ran into this year’s “Cinderella,” Matignon, and lost 2-0 in the quarterfinal.
Medfield outshot Matignon 28-13 for the game, but struggled to get anything by freshman goalie Lydia Rascher and a defense committed to clogging the shooting lanes and that blocked countless efforts on goal.
Despite a number of chances for freshman Maya Mangiafico, sophomore Becca Brown, and from the blue line by sophomore defenseman Kristen Reardon, none found the back of the net.
“We just couldn’t seem to get anything through,” said first-year Medfield coach Michael Cox. “Their goalie played well, their defense is blocking shots, and they took advantage of their power play in the third period.”
“It’s not that we weren’t getting chances; we were getting them but just couldn’t put them away today.”
Matignon took the lead with four minutes remaining in the game. Senior forward Rosie Sullivan scored on the power play, deflecting a shot from the point that left Medfield freshman goalie Sophie Merageas (12 saves) wrong-footed.
“She kept us in the game and gave us a chance to win it,” said Cox of Merageas, “but we just didn’t score. You’ve got to score to advance in the tournament.”
Matignon tacked on an empty net goal with 53 seconds left to seal a place in the semifinal.
Sitting on a bench just outside the locker room, Cox explained, “I never got the sense that we were pressing…but we didn’t have a lot of great chances. We were never able to elevate the puck on this kid and we needed to because she was taking away the ice.”
He added, “A lot of our game is transition too. They didn’t spend a lot of time in our zone and didn’t allow us to transition very well and create 3-on-2s or 2-on-1s.”
As he looked back on his first season in charge, Cox praised the team for its efforts all season and for winning the SEMGHL West division title. Having the vast majority of the roster coming back, Cox can look forward to another season of high expectations for the Warriors.
“I feel bad for our players,” he said, “because they work hard and they put themselves in position to play for a championship and…just didn’t play our best game today.”
Josh Perry is an Editor at Hometown Weekly. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter at @Josh_Perry10.
