By James Kinneen
Hometown Weekly Reporter
Last Wednesday night, the Medfield Warriors girls hockey team stormed back from an 0-2 hole in the first period to take home a 4-2 victory on their senior night. Marking the end of the regular season, with the win over Wakefield, the team heads to the state tournament boasting a 13-7 record.
Although Medfield would find themselves in a 0-2 hole at the end of the first period, even as they were losing by multiple goals, there was no question — they were the better team. Medfield dominated early, but a Megan MacTavish shot hit the side of the net, a Catherine Bannister shot went wide, and suddenly, on the counter, Wakefield scored at 8:08. Medfield didn’t seem flustered until about two minutes later, when Wakefield scored again at 6:50. Now down two goals in a game they were dominating in every way but the score, the Medfield fans began to get nervous. Wakefield struggled to get the puck out of their zone, but Medfield couldn’t score, and it was 2-0 Wakefield after one.
Wakefield played well in the second period, but struggled to change lines under Medfield’s constant pressure. After a nice save on a Catherine Bannister shot in front of the net at around the ten-minute mark, with a little over five minutes left, Wakefield made a brutal mistake. From just to the side of their net, a Wakefield defender passed it directly to Katherine Flippo, who made Wakefield pay by putting one in the back of the cage. Seemingly recovered from the shock of the two-goal deficit, Medfield played well, but couldn’t score again. They headed to the locker room down, 2-1.
In the third period of a game that featured zero penalties overall, at 12:03, senior Megan MacTavish skated through the defense to score what was a very pretty goal - and while you never would have guessed after seeing it, it was her first career goal. From there, Wakefield looked exhausted and after a near-goal from Cassie McDonald was waved off at the 9:40 mark, at 7:19, Lily Shaughnessy had a clean-up goal in front of the net to give Medfield a 3-2 lead. Wakefield never threatened, Catherine Bannister added another one for the Warriors, and Medfield ended their season with a 4-2 senior night victory.
“It was an exciting win,” Medfield coach Sarah Small declared after the game. “Senior night. It’s always good to get a win celebrating your seniors, and it was the last regular season game of the year, so we managed to kind of go out with a bang and start the tournament off on a win streak.”
But since they didn’t start their game off with a bang, the question arose as to what was happening at the beginning of the game that was so different from the rest of it. Small answered that she thinks her players were just nervous.
“I think when we play nervous, we tend to forget how to play our game. We get intimidated, or we throw the puck away, but once we calm down, we realize it’s just another game. I think the girls started to turn it up, and then we played or game. And that’s why we won.”
When asked who stood out to her, Small talked about MacTavish’s first career goal, before going on to praise all her seniors, MacTavish, Grenne Campbell, Lily Goodman and Kelsey Quint, saying, “they are all such great kids and have been such an important part of our team for four years.”
But while the regular season is over, the state tournament remains. When asked what her message was to the team going forward, Small’s message was all about surviving each round, but having fun doing it.
“One of my high school coaches used to always say ‘survive and advance,’ so we’re going to be looking at taking it game by game in the tournament and having fun while we do it.”
