By Paul Vozzella
Hometown Weekly Sports Reporter
The Warriors answered another call last Wednesday as they got their second win against Westwood this year, this time by a score of 5-1. They are now 10-0-1 in Jon Jepson’s first season as head coach.
Medfield found themselves in an early 1-0 deficit, something they are not used to judging by the scoreboard, but a habit Jepson believes his team needs to break as far as pace of play.
“I think, right now, we’re struggling coming out of the gates,” Jepson said. “I talked to the boys in the locker room after [the game]. We gotta find a way to come ready, to play a complete 45 minutes of hockey. First period has just been sluggish for us and it was tonight. Thank God, Charlie played great [in net]... We easily could’ve been down a few.”
The Warriors responded well to the goal, staying aggressive on offense and not letting the goal affect them on the defensive end. Senior captain Joseph Nee wiped the Wolverines lead in the tenth minute of the first period.
“We had good line rush and Luke Dickson gave me a nice pass across the middle, it bumped off my skate and I got the puck on net – just lucky it went in,” recalled Nee. “It was a good play by my two line-mates… all I had to do was get it on net.”
A couple of close calls around the net for Westwood threatened Medfield at the end of the first period, but the Warriors were able to head to the locker room with the game tied-up.
The second period saw a faster start for the undefeated team. After calling for the puck from the left side of the blue line in the first period to no avail, just over five minutes into the middle period, defenseman Nicholas Ntasios cashed in on an opportunity from the same spot, giving the Warriors a 2-1 lead. Even with the score, other opportunities were missed, according to Jepson.
“In the second period, I think we picked it up and took the play to them. Still, [Westwood’s] goalie made some really big saves and we didn’t finish. The third period was pretty even and got a little ugly at the end.”
Medfield made it a two-goal game with a Dickson goal put over the goalie’s stick side. Nee almost deflected another goal off of a pass from Brayden Kane on a power kill – something Jepson has emphasized.
“Our penalty kill, I wanted us to be aggressive, so the less time and space we get on them – go. If we get a chance to create some offense off the penalty kill, we’ve got some highly-skilled forwards that have some really good speed.”
Medfield killed a late penalty and tacked on two empty-net goals to solidify the victory. Their next challenge came on January 20 against Shawsheen Valley.
