Schools
Videos: Spartans Fall to Minutemen, 6-3
The Stoneham High School girls' hockey team tied the game at 2 early into the third period, but Lexington High quickly responded with a flurry of goals to beat the Spartans in Lexington.
LEXINGTON — Even some 20 minutes after it occurred, girls’ hockey coach Sara Swett-Zizzo still wasn’t sure what happened to her team early in the third period against .
The Middlesex League matchup was tied 2-all with 9 minutes, 4 seconds remaining in the final period. By the time 7:59 rolled around, the Minutemen had taken a commanding three-goal lead.
Lexington went on to win 6-3 before about 75 fans at the Hayden Recreation Centre’s John P. Chase Skating Facility on Wednesday night.
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“Three goals in about three or four minutes, I don’t know what happened there,” Swett-Zizzo said of Lexington’s flurry of goals. “We just kind of collapsed. Lexington’s a great team and they took advantage of our mistakes. We just dug ourselves a hole we couldn’t get out of.”
The Minutemen (12-1-2) held a 2-1 lead entering the third period, but Stoneham’s Colleen O’Quinn scored just 1:29 into the stanza to tie the game. She collected a loose puck off a rebound and beat Lexington goalie Cristina DiGiovanni with a wrist shot.
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It was the Spartans’ second straight goal, after falling behind 2-0 through the first two periods. Just then it appeared Stoneham (7-5-1) was gathering momentum to make an upset bid over the red-hot Minutemen.
But instead of getting them down, Stoneham’s rally seemed to energize the Minutemen.
“I think we were just more determined to get it done,” Lexington coach Amanda Ciarletta said, “and we weren’t going to let them come into our place and take the game away from us.”
The game would remain tied for just under a minute and a half. With 9:03 to play, Lexington senior quad-captain Meghan McNabb skated from left to right in the high slot and fired off a slap shot that rattled into the net. The assist went to junior Katy DelGreco.
Stoneham goalie Jillian Harrington got a piece of the shot, but not enough to stop it.
Harrington barely had time to recover before Lexington was charging again. At 8:19, junior Nicole Maher gave the Minutemen a two-goal cushion. Sophomore Jackie Denning earned the assist.
Just 20 seconds later, DelGreco added to the onslaught off an assist from senior quad-captain Elise Cormier. It was DelGreco's second goal of the night.
By then, all the momentum built by Stoneham’s comeback had vanished. Lexington went from back against the wall to the driver’s seat in the blink of an eye.
“When we tied it up, at that point, I really thought we would have put Lexington back on their heels,” Swett-Zizzo said. “But again, those three minutes, I don’t really know what happened to us. Again, they took full advantage of us, and we came back to play with heart until the end of the game.”
The Spartans certainly didn’t lie down following the Lexington blitz. Less than 20 seconds after DelGreco scored, Stoneham's leading scorer Danielle Phalon, a junior, scored her team’s third goal and her second of the night.
So, with 6:41 to go, the Spartans were still within striking distance, down 5-3. However, Lexington’s DiGiovanni may have seen things a little differently.
She made the Minutemen’s lead stick when she stoned Phalon with 3:30 remaining. The latter gained control of the puck in the high slot and skated in on DiGiovanni uncontested. A deke to the left got the goalie off-balance, but DiGiovanni still made a kick save with her right leg pad to deny Phalon the hat trick.
“We just couldn’t finish it off,” Swett-Zizzo said.
Lexington opened the scoring late in what looked like it might be a scoreless first period. The puck squirted loose amid traffic in front of the Stoneham net and Lexington sophomore Sara Lehman was there to poke it into the net with 12 seconds to play.
Katy DelGreco scored her first goal of the contest when her sister Danielle fed her with a perfect cross-crease pass. Katy gathered the puck and buried it into the top-right corner of the net six minutes into the second.
About a minute later, Phalon gained control of the puck in the neutral zone and outraced the Lexington defense. She put one nice move on DiGiovanni and flicked the puck into the net. Assists went to sophomore Lynn Kozlowski and O’Quinn.
Stoneham remains on the road for its next game, a 12:45 p.m. matchup at Belmont High on Saturday.
