LYNN — The St. Mary’s girls hockey team made its return to the ice in grand fashion Monday afternoon, rolling to a 9-0 win over Catholic Central League foe Archbishop Williams at Connery Rink. Sophomore Jenna Chaplain was the star of the day for the Spartans, as the Peabody native scored her 100th career point in the victory.
“She’s been making an impact for us since the minute she got on the ice,” St. Mary’s coach Frank Pagliuca said of Chaplain, who has played on the varsity squad since seventh grade. “She’s incredibly gifted, she’s a special offensive player and the rest of her game is really rounding into form as she’s growing her confidence. And above all that, she’s a great person. She’s humble, she leads by example and she’s one of the hardest workers we have on the team. She just loves hockey.”
The game was also the Spartans’ first contest in more than two weeks after the team had to pause all activities due to COVID-19 precautions.
“It was just great to get back out on the ice, above all else,” said Pagliuca. “I expected us to be a little sluggish in the first period and we were at times, but as the game went on I thought we really started to play well.”
Freshman Kasey Litwin and eighth grader Caitlyn O’Donnell scored two goals each in the victory for St. Mary’s, while Chaplain, senior Samantha Porazinski, sophomore Kelly Lovett, sophomore Lily Pregent and freshman Hannah Coleman each scored one goal. Litwin, O’Donnell and Coleman each notched their first varsity goal in the victory. Sophomore goalie Rylee Smith and freshman goalie Gianna Tringale combined for the shutout win in net.
“The best part about the win was the fact that we got so many different players involved on the score sheet,” said Pagliuca.
The Spartans didn’t waste any time in getting things going Monday afternoon, as Litwin found the back of the net just nine seconds into the game to put St. Mary’s ahead 1-0. O’Donnell and Lovett also added one goal each in the first period, giving the Spartans a 3-0 advantage at the first intermission.
In the second period, St. Mary’s blew the game open. Behind goals from O’Donnell, Porazinski, Litwin, Coleman, Pregent and Chaplain, the Spartans took a 9-0 lead into the third period and never looked back.
St. Mary’s (2-1-1) is back in action Wednesday afternoon (4) against Bishop Feehan back at Connery Rink.
“I think one of the biggest things we need to do is get off to better starts, because in most of our games we’ve started pretty sloppy,” said Pagliuca. “We just need to go out there and make the simple play without trying to do too much. We also need to improve our communication, and I think that’s something I’m going to emphasize in practice this week. Hopefully we can take the positive momentum from this win and bring it right into Wednesday.”
