By Paul Vozzella
Hometown Weekly Sports Reporter
The rollercoaster ride of a season came to a stop on Tuesday as Needham lost its Round of 32 playoff matchup versus Archbishop Williams by a score of 6-1. The Rockets finish with a 12-9 record overall.
The opening five minutes gave the impression of a back-and-forth thriller but a turnover led to an odd man rush for the Bishops in which they were able to get on the scoreboard first. Before the Rockets could find its groove again, Archbishop Williams doubled
down, gaining a 2-0 lead.
“I thought leading up to the first goal, we came out and executed the game plan. We were all over pucks. We were all over them - physical,” said head coach Mike Hoban. “The score is not indicative of how that game was played. I thought we controlled the pace a lot of the game and a couple of bad turnovers and transitions led to goals for them.”
Needham committed a penalty as the first period was winding down, leaving them shorthanded to begin the second stanza. A Bishop penalty made things even again and gave the Rockets a quick advantage; however, it did not amount to any goals.
More strong play throughout the period allowed Needham to maintain momentum, but it would not last an extensive amount of time. The concluding five minutes of the period saw a defensive collapse from the Rockets as they surrendered three goals to go into second intermission. Goalie Conor Espinola provided his best efforts, diving and extending to keep the puck in front of him, but a couple of hapless bounces to opposing players resulted in the scores.
“I think the biggest thing [leading to the goals] was miscommunication,” said captain Niall O’Malley. “[We] ended up with one guy back or someone wasn’t covering the point and [it led to] odd man opportunities.”
Despite the big deficit, Needham came out from the second intermission with a lot of energy. Captain Tommy Peabody tried to spark a comeback by netting Needham’s first goal just over a minute into the third period. Unfortunately, the senior’s goal was all his team would be able to mount. Peabody joins twelve other seniors in bidding farewell to high school hockey.
“It’s been amazing,” said O’Malley. “We’ve played together since second, third grade and it was great to play at the highest level that we all can together.”
Although the outcome is not what Hoban hoped for, he remained proud of his team’s performance: “I mean, these kids were down 5-0 after two [periods], said Hoban. “There's a lot of teams that would have just packed it in and and moved onto their spring sport, and these guys battled hard for the last 15 minutes and got a goal early on and kept battling and kept going. Again, it wasn't the result we wanted, but they battled hard all game just like they did all year.”
Hoban will return eight players next year for his eleventh season as Needham’s head coach in search of his first state title and the town's first since 2003.
