Published December 30, 2020
By STEPHEN MARTELLUCCI
LYNNFIELD — Last season, the Lynnfield High boys’ hockey team lost 5-2 to North Andover in the first round of the Division 2 North state tournament to end up at 11-8-2 overall.
Eleven seniors from that squad, including Cape Ann League All-Conference player Sam Pifko who led the league in goals with 24, graduated. They also lost CAL All-Stars John Simonetti, Ronnie Fuccillo and Dan Mack.
The good news, however, for ninth-year head coach Jon Gardner is that he does return 12 veterans this season.
Three of those veterans are this year’s senior captains: Brenden Henehan is a center while Alex Buonopane plays right wing. Jake DeBenedictis is the other captain and the goalie was a Cape Ann League All-Star last winter as he went 10-8-2 with a 2.47 goals-against average.
Phil Berquist is the other senior back and he is a right winger.
Six Pioneers back are juniors. Those six players are Jassen Sperling (center), Will Steadman (left wing), Chase Carney (center), Patrick Barrett (defenseman), Tyler Scoppetuolo (defenseman) and Owen Kennedy (defenseman).
The two sophomores returning are defenseman Drew Damiani and right winger Nate Alves.
With the Covid-19 pandemic, things have been very different this winter. The Pioneers started tryouts on Dec. 14th and it lasted six days. The team then took Christmas week off last week and then returned to practice on Dec. 26.
“In a regular year, we would only have a few days of tryouts and some scrimmages,” explained Gardner. “This year has been a little more laid back. We didn’t have to take the Christmas week off but we wanted to so we could be sure everybody was healthy.”
The CAL schedule will be a 10-game schedule. The original plan is to have the large schools play each other twice and then play the small schools once. The schedule is subject to change in case some districts get into the Red Zone with higher COVID cases.
Originally, the Pioneers were supposed to have opened the season on Jan. 2 against Pentucket. That has been changed due to COVID issues and the team will now host Hamilton-Wenham instead.
Game time is set for noon and will take place at the McVann-O’Keefe Rink in Peabody.
The second game of the season will be on Jan. 6 against host Newburyport at Graf Rink. Faceoff is set for 7 p.m.
“This is a unique situation and we are grateful that we can get to play,” said Gardner, about the circumstances. “Hopefully, we can get better as the season goes along.”
