By Paul Vozzella
Hometown Weekly Sports Reporter
The Warriors are bringing home more hardware. For the first time ever, Medfield won the Division 2 girls hockey State Championship by defeating Milton 3-0.
The team was led by a strong performance between the pipes from junior Kamryn Perachi. The goaltender was a brick wall, stopping all 37 shots she faced throughout the game.
On the other end of the ice, Medfield struggled to get shots on net but proved to be efficient with the opportunities it had.
Medfield worked with a lead for almost the full 45 minutes of action. Senior Maeve Kelly found the rebound from her own shot on goal directly in front of the net and successfully followed it up with a score 1:18 into the game. Moments later, she almost tacked on another goal but sent the puck over the net.
Later on in the period, the Warriors had a couple more chances to add to their lead when the puck almost bounced off of senior Brooke Reilly’s skate and into the goal. With a little over a minute to go in the period, a loose puck was roaming around the crease after junior Genna McDonald sent a shot towards net with Margaret Hollander standing nearby. Hollander, however, could not control the puck well enough to guide it to the back of the net.
The second frame saw the biggest shot differential of the game with Milton outshooting Medfield 14 to 3. The Warriors faced their first big threat after committing their first penalty of the evening. With Perachi locked in, no goal was surrendered. Further into the action, McDonald was able to sneak the puck through the five hole to give the Warriors a two-goal advantage.
It was more of the same in the final period for Medfield. While being heavily outshot, it still found the best of its opportunities. Similarly to earlier in the game, Reilly came close to scoring but the cards did not fall her way. She got her stick on the puck while it was loose behind the goalie but misdirected it, sending it across the back of the crease, parallel to the goal line.
The Warriors found themselves in another short-handed situation again but were able to cleanly kill the penalty. Freshman Anne Flippo put the dagger into Milton’s heart with an empty net goal with under a minute remaining in the game.
The four captains – Reilly, Kelly, Michaela McDonald and Caroline McManama – finish their high school careers at the peak. The captains are the only players graduating, with the rest of the roster set to return for another chance at glory next year.
