By Avonlea Cummings
Hometown Weekly Sports Reporter
It was cool in the Canton Ice House rink but action was heating up on the ice as the Westwood girls hockey team hosted the Norwood Mustangs on Wednesday, January 3rd. It was a back-and-forth battle on the ice as both teams competed fighting for the winning title. Westwood came out on top defeating the Mustangs 4-2.
As the puck dropped onto the ice and the teams faced off, it was the start of the first period. Westwood came out intense and ready to challenge Norwood’s offensive attempts to score. Maintaining possession, the Wolverines swiveled away from Norwood’s defense with ease and were able to capitalize on putting in two goals to take the lead right away from Tessa Jones and Abby Presley. However, toward the end of the first, Norwood found a hole in Westwood’s wall of defense and snuck the puck into the back of the net making the score 2-1.
In the second period, both teams fought for the possession of the puck, it was a continuous back-and-forth battle that had fans anxiously awaiting the next move. Norwood would tie the game with 11 minutes to go in the second period making the game 2-2. Westwood would not back down from the Mustangs' efforts, with strong communication on the ice, the Wolverines were a force to be reckoned with as Abby Presley would slam in her second puck of the night taking back the lead for Westwood 3-2.
Once the teams strategized their next moves during intermission, it was time for the third period to commence which would make or break the outcome of the night’s competition. Westwood still held the narrow lead, but it was too close for comfort as the Mustangs and Wolverines continued to take shots on net. Despite the Mustangs' intense defensive skills, the Westwood girls found ways to break down their walls, finding openings to shoot the puck. Kate Sullivan took control of the puck with just over seven minutes left to go in the period and zipped the puck past Norwood’s goalie making the score 4-2 for Westwood. The Wolverines held their lead until the final minutes and as the time slipped away, the buzzer blared into the rink and Westwood celebrated their third victory of the season.
Head coach Lauren Hillberg shared her thoughts on the evening's competition.
“I’d say for tonight we really focused this week at practice on our team warm-ups and what we do prior to the game. We knew this was going to be a big game since it was TVL, and we definitely needed this win. They had a really good warm-up, we knew we had to win face-offs more, so we focused on that, and we had to capitalize on power-plays, Norwood got six power-plays and we were able to get a couple of goals off that which was pretty big. I think our first line Kate Sullivan, Abby Presley, and Maggie Ash played great tonight. Maggie and Abby are two eighth graders who have stepped up and helped us out tremendously this year, Kate is a junior and the three of them are really meshing well together and they’re scoring goals that we need,” said Hillberg.
The girls will travel to the Franklin Pirelli Arena to play against Franklin High on Saturday, January 13th at 4:30 PM.
