Groton, MA – MassNZ completed the rare tripleheader by taking in a Coughlin Conference showdown between the Lunenburg/Ayer-Shirley Blue Knights and the Littleton-Bromfield Tigers. The seniors for Littleton-Bromfield were celebrated with player banners for the seniors hung from the railings with care. Both teams were vying for Top 10 D4 seeding as the Blue Knights came in ranked twelfth and the Tigers were ranked seventh. This was a great opportunity to see two of the top teams in D4 to round out our day in the rinks.
In the first period, things started a bit slowly as both teams were fired up to be playing but there was almost TOO much excitement. Both teams were overskating pucks, missing passes and struggling to set a clean pace. There were a lot of defensive and neutral zone turnovers early and neither team had a real territorial advantage. Slowly but surely it was the Tigers that were able to effectively break out of their zone and one of those breakouts led to the game’s first goal. Junior Liam Glew tossed an outlet pass up to senior Ethan King who found junior Gavin Werling who tapped it home at the back post to make it 1-0 Tigers. They would maintain the momentum through the end of the first period, gaining more confidence after killing off a penalty late in the frame. It was 1-0 Littleton-Bromfield after one.
In the middle frame, Littleton-Bromfield took control of this game and owned the time of possession. They were stronger on their sticks and won seemingly every battle which continued to frustrate Lunenburg/Ayer-Shirley. They created several Grade A looks but it took until the five-minute mark to bury their second. King drove hard into the attacking zone and snapped off a wrist shot that beat the goalie clean to make it 2-0 Tigers. Roughly 35 seconds later they would add a third as a loose puck sat just above the paint and it was eventually knocked home by freshman forward Austin Huber. His teammates went bonkers celebrating so we would have to assume it was his first varsity goal. At this point, things started to get contentious and there were multiple misconducts whistled for a fracas that ensued after the goal was scored. Following the penalties there was another skirmish on the ice and more players were sent to the box with misconducts, there were also a few choice words uttered between rival parents in the stands. Luckily both the teams and the parents regained their composure and we were back to playing hockey. At the eight-minute mark would come a fourth goal for the Tigers as Liam Glew slipped around a defender and tucked it home at the far post. Interestingly, the Tigers would dominate possession for nearly all of this period and with this game tilted in their favor they called a timeout on a late power play with roughly a minute to go. We assume it was to give the team a breather after a long shift, but the hope is that they wouldn’t need it later in the game. Regardless, we were on to the third with the score 4-0 Tigers.
In the third period, Lunenberg/Ayer-Shirley began to push back. Many of their best chances of the game came during the opening minutes of this frame as they strung together nice passing plays and used their speed to attack from the wings inward. Because so many of their shots on net were one-and-done, they had to be precise and that was a problem because Tigers junior Jacob Dangel took away a lot of the net and showed good positioning all game long. As the period wore on, the chances for the Blue Knights were more sporadic and they did manage to score a goal, but it was waved off due to being tipped in with a high stick. Breathing a sigh of relief, the Tigers went to work and added two more tallies before it was all said and done. With under five minutes remaining in the game, it was King who flipped the puck into the royal road and junior Andrew Archer buried it top shelf: 5-0 Tigers. Then with a minute and a half left, a Blue Knights turnover led to Werling feeding Archer who buried again to complete the scoring. That signaled running time for the rest of the period and our final was 6-0 in favor of the Tigers.
Three Stars:
- F Ethan King, Littleton-Bromfield
- G Jacob Dangel, Littleton-Bromfield
- D Liam Glew, Littleton-Bromfield