'It’s next-girl up': Shrewsbury girls' hockey weathers injures, scores late in shutout over HPNA
WESTBOROUGH — Shrewsbury saved its best hockey for the third period Wednesday night, scoring twice to snap a scoreless tie in a 2-0 victory over Haverhill/Pentucket/North Andover (HPNA) at Northstar Ice Sports.
Shrewsbury (7-3-3, 6-2-2 Merrimack Valley/Dual County) avenged a 1-1 tie with HPNA on Jan. 6 to take the season series. The Colonials have won four of their last five games.
“That’s a league game, so they are all like this,” Shrewsbury coach Frank Panarelli said. “They are always tight with good goaltending.”
Risa Montoya was solid all night for the Colonials, stopping all 17 shots she faced for the shutout.
“When you have that strength in net, it gives you a lot more confidence,” Panarelli said. “Having Risa in net, she’s going to give us a chance to win every night, and she has all season.”
After a scoreless and relatively quiet first period, the action in the second heated up with both teams generating quality scoring chances, but neither team was able to convert.
Shrewsbury's best chance in that second period was created by Bridget McLaughlin, who used her speed to split the D in the neutral zone, going in all alone. Her attempt clanged off the crossbar, and the teams remained scoreless heading into the third period.
Blair Fay snapped that scoreless tie early in the third with a great individual effort. She picked up the puck along a wall just beyond HPNA’s blue line. Fay then used her speed to get past the HPNA defender, before cutting to the middle, and firing it home top corner to make it 1-0 Colonials.
“I kind of just saw the space, and I took it,” Fay said. “Coach Frank (Panarelli) always gives me great advice. He tells me I have the speed. Just with the confidence, it was really easy to pass the D, and I took it wide. I cut to the middle, saw the top of the goal, and I just took a shot, and it went in.”
Shrewsbury picked up the insurance goal with just under five minutes remaining when Sadie Cusson converted on the power play.
Shrewsbury, the defending Division 1 state champion, is ranked 11th in the latest MIAA Division 1 power rankings. The Colonials are defending their title this year after upending St. Mary’s (Lynn) in the D1 title game last March at TD Garden.
“That’s a lot of pressure on us,” Fay said. “Having that in the back of our minds, knowing you were the state champs last year, people think we are good, so we have to keep that reputation and hold it strong.”
“We have a target on our back,” Panarelli added. “We played Lincoln-Sudbury the other night, and I asked their coach after if it was one of the better games they played, and he said it was their best game. So we do, we have a massive target, and we know that.”
To add to the complications of defending their title has been a couple of key injuries, which have forced some healthy players to change positions.
“Like it said to the girls, it’s next-girl up,” Panarelli said. “You can’t dwell on who is not here. Everyone is buying in. That’s the biggest win of the year to me, because of how we did it (missing two key players).”
“I like the character of this team,” Panarelli added. “We had a nice nucleus coming back, and they’ve been through a lot of this already. We’re not the same team, but we are different. But we can win this way.
"We can play lockdown defense, and I’d like a few more goals, but we’re scoring enough, ' he added. "And Risa is giving us that chance to win if we can get one or two goals.”
—Contact Chris Kyne at sports@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @tgsports.
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Shrewsbury girls' hockey weathers injuries, scores late while blanking HPNA
