Tewksbury, MA – In the words of Bill Belichick, there are “no days off” when it comes to Mass HS hockey and tonight we made a trip over to Tewksbury to see two teams open their seasons. Those two being the Andover Golden Warriors and the Waltham Hawks. This is a matchup of two teams we had our eyes on if you took a look at our preseason article early this month.
The first period was off to a raucous start, spurred on by a rambunctious Andover home student section. Just one minute in the Golden Warriors ran a smart play behind the net with junior defender Andrew Walles dishing it out front to junior forward Marcel Joe for a quick shot that slipped through to give Andover the 1-0 lead. Following that goal, Andover continued to make a push and had several hard drives to the net but ultimately none that led to additional goals. Waltham withstood the early onslaught and started to build momentum off a late power play and even had a couple of Grade A scoring chances that just missed the net. We moved on to the middle frame still locked at 1-0.
In the second period, the game went squirrelly in both directions. It didn’t start out that way as Andover was in full control early. Just under three minutes in they would double their lead to 2-0 with a pass out of the near-side corner by Brendan Murnane and a nice backhand finish near the net by senior forward Carter Hillson. The score would stay that way for three more minutes until a terrific give-and-go play was finished off when Hillson dished the puck to Murnane to make it 3-0. This fired up the Andover crowd who chanted it was time to “warm the busses”…with half the game still to play. Waltham heard the call and answered seven minutes later as Waltham senior Will Curley won an offensive zone draw and fed senior forward Kevin Dann who fired a twisted wrister through the five-hole to make it 3-1. Not to be denied, Andover would get that goal back two minutes later when senior forward Braeden Archambault centered the puck off the back wall and Nik Previte fired it home near the cage to make it 4-1. Waltham wouldn’t let that stand and responded 29 seconds later just before the period ended as an Evan Cormier shot was tipped on goal by big senior forward Philip Sarkissian to make it 4-2, which would be our score after 30 minutes. The Hawks entered the room with momentum, but could they close the gap in the final frame?
In the third period, Andover snuffed out that momentum right off the bat. Joe engaged a heavy forecheck and forced a mistake in the attacking zone, leading to a shot attempt by Jonny Lynch and another by senior forward Alex Doudkin who buried to make it 5-2 just a minute into the frame. Waltham was able to maintain and put together a couple of good zone entries but ultimately was not able to respond before Andover could strike again. With seven and a half minutes gone in the period some hard work by Previte in the corner led him to dig the puck out and feed senior forward Archambault for another tally to make it 6-2. To Waltham’s credit, as has been their team identity over the past few seasons, they refused to be outworked late in this game despite what the scoreboard said. With two and a half minutes to go they were rewarded as sophomore forward Connor Chiasson made a nice play to keep the puck in at the blue line and following a shot attempt by Chris Konstantopoulous, sophomore forward Shant Gebeyan followed up the play and slipped the puck home at the far post. That would give us our final score: Andover 6, Waltham 3. Both teams are back in action Saturday with Waltham taking on Westford Academy and Andover taking on Shrewsbury.
Three Stars:
- F Carter Hillson, Andover
- F Nik Previte, Andover
- F Brendan Murnane, Andover