Caroline Averill ’26 and Sarah Powers ’26 during game against Cushing.
Wednesday 1/29 – Andover: 4, Cushing: 2
Girls Hockey (10-1-1) faced Cushing on Wednesday and secured a decisive victory, extending its win streak to ten games. The team’s offensive play was especially strong, allowing the team to keep possession of the puck for most of the match. Now the team looks to fine tune its strategy and watch film on its opponents leading up to its next game against Buckingham Browne & Nichols (BB&N).
Lily McInerney ’26 praised the impressive play of Junior goalie Marie Lee ’28, who stepped up to start due to the injury of the team’s typical goalie. McInerney emphasized the importance of staying focused during practice amidst a busy week of games. She highlighted the team’s focus on breakouts, puck collections, and conditioning.
“Our goalie, Marie Lee [stood out]. She’s a Freshman. It’s hard coming in here new. Our starting goalie has a concussion right now. She had a really good game tonight… This week’s practice, Monday, we started with some conditioning and skating. This week is a big week for us, we have three games so focusing on our breakouts and our puck collections has been important this week,” said McInerney.
Vanessa Hall ’28 reflected on how Cushing threatened to tie the game for much of the match. She pointed to a key play between Caroline Averill ’26 and Sarah Powers ’26 that helped secure a critical lead.
“[The score] was three to two for a while and that’s close because then if they get a goal, then it’s tied. There was one play where Caroline Averill was coming down the ice to the puck and Sarah Powers busted to the net and got a pass from her. It was a really good pass and Sarah Powers scored on it. It gave us a good lead so it wasn’t as tight,” said Hall.
Hall recounted the team’s strong offensive performance and ability to maintain puck possession. She also noted that focusing too much on offense sometimes led to defensive lapses.
“We did very well on offense all game. The puck was in their end of the ice the whole time. We just had good puck possession and cycling the puck and [Cushing] didn’t really have that at all. I would say a weakness is also how much offense we had because sometimes we’d get too carried away and then they’d have like a two on one because we weren’t focusing on defense,” said Hall.
McInerney praised the team’s effort, highlighting their success in winning 50-50 puck races and getting pucks to the net. She also noted that their effort helped them beat Cushing to loose pucks.
“We were really hard on pucks and we won a lot of the 50-50 races and we got a lot of pucks to the net and we’re working on our screens which has been good. Cushing, they’re a young team, and they’re also really hard on the puck but I think we were just able to beat them to a lot of them tonight,” said McInerney.
McInerney discussed the importance of the team working on its strategy and preparing for opponents by watching film. She noted the significance of reflecting on their own performance and studying their upcoming rivals.
“I look forward to working on the power play and penalty kill and also watching film on our opponents has been big for us this week also, so I’m excited to watch some more film,” said McInerney.
Girls Hockey will play BB&N on Friday at home.
