Warriors had many newcomers, improved as the season went on
THE WMHS girls’ hockey team had a lot of young players and improved as the the season went on. The players on the roster included Lydia Rascher, Meghan Guarino, Courtney Hill, Gabby Raffaele, Leah Devlin, Mary Callahan, Abby Chapman, Meghan DelGreco, Megan Horrigan, Julianne Bourque, Vanessa Kaddaras, Mikayla Fennelly, Caroline Sweeney, Brigid Scanlon, Meaghan Kerrigan, Emily Ryan, Olivia Cameron, Brooke Lilley, Gabrielle Nadolny, Jackie MacDonald, Sofia Barrett and Miriam Wood. The team manager was Mackenzie Foley. The coaching staff included head coach Jack Foley and assistants Mary Anne Burridge and Molly Passerini. (Donna Larsson Photo)
By DAN MARGARITA
WAKEFIELD — With the winter sports season fully concluded, now is the time for reflection for the Wakefield Memorial High girls’ hockey coach Jack Foley to assess the season.
“We struggled early in the season to kind of get our legs under us and start playing better hockey. The first few weeks of the season are always an adjustment, especially for the newer girls who are coming up from the middle school and are getting a taste of high school hockey for the first time,” said Foley.
Wakefield finished the season with an 0-16-4 overall record and 0-12-3 in the Middlesex League Freedom division.
A problem that the program has faced in recent years is a lack of available players for Foley to choose from, forcing the coach to reach down to the middle school to bring up players with a waiver from the MIAA. Many other Middlesex League teams faced a similar situation.
There is no JV program for the younger players to develop, leaving them to learn the game at the faster-paced varsity level.
“We only have the varsity program. We don’t have a JV program where they can learn their skills. The numbers are an issue but also once we request a (MIAA) waiver, the middle schoolers coming up would only be allowed to play on a JV team. It would benefit us and numbers-wise, 22 players are not enough to run two teams.”
Getting some first time players doesn’t guarantee their continued participation down the road.
“You kind of think of it that way but you never really know.Even from the previous year we lost two or three kids that had come out that had never played before (and) skated for a year and decided it wasn’t for them and didn’t come back. So, you never know. We may pick up a few kids from the middle school but we may lose a few. It’s hard for kids at this level to pick up the sport, never having played before or seeing any significant ice time,” noted Foley.
“We wound up with more that we started out with. We had a fairly small group last year (and) we lost a couple of seniors. We started out with about 13 and we knew there were three or four girls coming up from the middle school into their freshman year at the high school and we didn’t expect a whole lot more than that. We had some other new kids that were sophomores that came out for the first time, so we ended up with a little bigger group. We had about 22 overall and two of those were eighth graders.”
Giving the puck away in its own end was a problem that plagued the team much of the season, though much more so early on.
“I thought that as the season went on the girls played a lot better and despite the record, I thought the girls did a really nice job. The last three or four weeks of the season I thought they played really well. We played tough against a lot of teams. We played a tough game against Woburn, losing 3-1 with the last goal being an empty net goal. We had four ties and the kids played hard those games and we easily could’ve come away with a victory,” Foley added.
It also didn’t help that Wakefield plays in the Middlesex League, which is perpetually one of the strongest, if not the strongest league in Massachusetts.
“Our league is a strong league and our non-league games are not against easy teams. All of our non-league opponents made the tournament and went beyond the first round. Look at Austin Prep, they went pretty far. We played a nice game (against them) but we had a tough first period. We gave up some goals, going down 4-0 in the first period and then it’s a 1-1 game after that. I thought my team played very well. That’s a team that went to the state semifinal and lost to the eventual champ Reading.”
As the season wore on the team began playing better for longer stretches of games as Foley noted.
“We played well that last stretch of the season and if we’d come around a little sooner anything could’ve happened. I thought the defense got stronger as the year went on. Meg Horrigan and Courtney Hill definitely got better as the season went along. So, there’s a lot of things to look forward to.”
Along with the issue of turning over the puck in its own end, the team had trouble putting the puck in its opponents net, save for junior forward Julianne Bourque who accounted for most of Wakefield’s offensive output.
“We had struggles at both ends. We were giving away the puck in our end and good teams will capitalize and at the other end, we didn’t score enough. We only had 26 goals in 20 games, so the combination at both ends wasn’t a good mix. I thought that Julianne Bourque had a great season. I think she ended up with half of our goals. She played really well all season long and I thought the goaltenders played very well at times. Both Miriam (Wood) and Lydia (Rascher) played very well at times,” said Foley.
Honors were to be had for Julianne Bourque, who was named a Middlesex League All Star, and senior forward Meghan Guarino and Wood who received honorable mention.
