Cougars Take Round One in the Battle of Mass. Ave.

The 2010-2011 season has been up and down and certainly has delivered it’s fair share of frustrations to the girls’ hockey team so far. Conversely, for the girls, it’s been a season full of successes and big wins as they’ve already clinched a post-season birth. The two teams came together Monday night for what is always a battle with bragging rights on the table, and the Cougars pulled off the upset with a 3-0 win.

“It feels really good, that’s a big win for us,” exclaimed Arlington Catholic’s assistant coach Tracy Johnson. “I thought we put a lot of pressure on them tonight and the girls were really working hard, so it was nice to be rewarded.”

The game was everything you’d expect in a tilt between the two cross-town rivals, coming down to the final period with neither team backing down from the other. It was the Cougars who seemed to have more jump in their legs from the very first face-off, though, as they immediately attacked the AHS zone.

AC was strong in all three zones, controlling possession of the puck, peppering Arlington High net minder Casey Schaejbe with shots and clamping down defensively to stop any sort of Spy Ponder offensive outburst.

“I don’t know what it is, I don’t know if we underestimated our opponent or what, but it was probably the worst game we played all season,” said a dejected AHS head coach Jeff Mead. “But still you have to give them credit because they really seemed to want it more. We got beat to every loose puck, we didn’t win any battles and they came hard at us.”

Despite a strong effort from the Cougars, Schaejbe stood tall in net keeping the Ponders in the game. The junior goalie made 20 stops on the night. On the other side, AC displayed a strong defensive strategy, and thanks to steady games from their top four d-corps of Melissa Richard, Colleen Munroe, Laura Schmidlein and Rebecca Zappala, they were able to stifle the Arlington offense and hold them to just five shots through two periods.

They were finally rewarded for their hard work just 17 seconds into the final stanza, when a strong forecheck by senior co-captain Alyssa Sullivan caused a turnover and Natalie Flynn jumped on the loose puck and buried it, scoring what would ultimately be the game winner. At the 3:30 mark, Sullivan added an insurance marker for AC with an unassisted shorthanded goal to make it 2-0, and she would ice the game with an empty-netter, capping off a strong performance.

“Alyssa was just all over the ice tonight and just wouldn’t quit,” Johnson said of her senior captain. “It was great to see her get rewarded with that shorthanded goal too because she worked so hard all night.”

For the Spy Ponders, it may prove to just be a small hiccup in what has so far been a very good season. They will get another crack at AC as well when the two teams meet for a rematch in just two weeks. The Cougars, on the other hand, are hoping that they can build off of the emotional victory as they make a bid for a ticket to the post season.