Amazing girls hockey star averaged 5 points per game across career
It's true, records are meant to be broken. Yet sometimes the truly amazing aspect of a new mark comes not from its final tally, but rather from the monumental consistency required to reach it.
That may never have been more clearly the case than with the new all-time leading scorer in Massachusetts girls' hockey. According to the Boston Globe, Governor's (Mass.) Academy senior Alex Carpenter, a Boston College recruit, set the new career mark in her team's New England Private School Athletic Conference Division 2 championship-game victory, a 5-2 win against Rivers (Mass.) School that handed Governor's its fourth consecutive NEPSAC Division 2 crown.
While the victory was a watershed for an entire class of Governor's seniors, it was a monumental statistical breakthrough for Carpenter. Not only did the forward earn her fourth consecutive NEPSAC Div. 2 tournament MVP, she also netted a hat trick and an assist to finish her scholastic career with 410 points, trumping the previous Massachusetts state mark of 406.
While any hockey career that finishes with 410 points at any level should be considered phenomenally successful, one need just look at the total games Carpenter played to realize how lethal a scoring touch she possessed. Across four seasons -- in all of which Carpenter played a prominent role on Governor's varsity team -- the U-18 U.S. international's prep team competed in 82 games. Do the math and one quickly realizes that the senior averaged five points per game across her scholastic career.
Think about that for a moment. Carpenter averaged five points per game across four years. It's astounding. Equally amazing is the fact that she wasn't honored as a Boston Globe All-Scholastic first-team pick more than twice. Given her statistics, one would have picked Carpenter as a four-year shoo-in.
To her team's credit, Carpenter was just one-third of a dominant forward line at the school, teaming with fellow senior and national team star Kate Leary and senior Alanna McDonough to rack up an eye-bulging 992 career points.
Despite all the accolades belatedly hurled in the seniors' direction, their coach said that the trio's most impressive attribute was their commitment to the team above their own goals.
"[Leary, Carpenter, and McDonough] never put personal goals over team goals and that sort of grew from the beginning as freshmen," Governor's coach Babe Ceglarski told the Globe.
"In the end, I think it's just simple chemistry. Each one of them knew what their job was and Alex sort of grew into the go-to person throughout her career."
That was one heck of a career for Carpenter, who heads to the next level with almost unmatched accomplishments already under her belt. True to form, she was happy with her team's title, yet also expressed regret for the only crown that slipped beyond their grasp.
"I gave it my all, [my only regret] is not getting the ISL championship," Carpenter told the Globe. "But this is even better."
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