BEVERLY — The No. 4 St. Mary’s girls hockey team battled back and forth all game long with No. 5 Acton-Boxborough Saturday afternoon, but in the end the Spartans came up just short in a 5-4 overtime loss at Raymond J. Bourque Arena in a Division 1 quarterfinal matchup.
Jenna Chaplain and Amanda Forziati scored the four goals of the game for St. Mary’s with two goals apiece. Regan Sullivan added two assists, while Haylie Grossmann, Gabbi Oakes, Maggie Pierce, Kasey Litwin and Chaplain each had one assist.
Acton-Boxborough freshman Natalie Hodgson scored two goals, followed by Cailey Ryan’s two goals and one assist and Allison Corrieri’s one goal and one assist.
Throughout the game, both teams played at a very fast pace. This allowed for the Spartans to take an early 3-2 lead to end the first period of play but, due to penalties, Acton-Boxborough was able to take advantage of the situation and score two of their five goals on the powerplay.
The game ended in overtime, when Hodgson scored the final goal for Acton-Boxborough to send her team to the semifinal round
“Obviously I think we’re very disappointed, but AB is a good team, they capitalized on their opportunities,” said St. Mary’s coach Frank Pagliuca. “We had several opportunities to extend the lead and score in the overtime, but it just didn’t fall for us.”
Even though the season came to an end for the Spartans earlier than they would’ve liked, the future looks bright ahead for the team, and they’ll be back stronger than ever next year.
“It’s good for us to get this experience in the tournament, to play some tough games,” said Pagliuca. “It’s an unfortunate way to end the season, because we’ve come a long way and we’ve improved a lot. The future is bright, we’ve got a lot of talented kids returning.”
St. Mary’s finishes with a record of 14-8-3. While it’s not the outcome the Spartans were hoping for, with no seniors graduating, the Spartans will retain a majority of their already well-established team, and will look to bounce back in the 2022-23 season.
