So what does the Weston-Wayland girls’ hockey team have to do to win a game? Still seeking its first victory, W-W peppered visiting Newton South with shots on goal all night, but still fell short in a 3-2 loss to the Lions (4-5-2) on Saturday. Newton South got the winning tally with 16 seconds left in the game on a goal by sophomore defenseman Hailey Hart.
"We controlled the play all night, but Newton South was able to get great goaltending and opportunistic goals to secure the win,” Weston-Wayland head coach Bill MacDonald said.
With the score tied at 2 after two frames, W-W came out storming in the third period, but couldn’t solve Newton goalie Karina Alfisher.
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“[We] came out in the third with some of [our] best play of the year, but [Karina] was equal to the task and kept Newton South in the game,” said MacDonald, whose squad outshot the Lions, 14-4, in the final stanza. “We just missed on a number of opportunities.”
After a timeout with a minute to play, Newton was able to move the puck into the W-W zone, but W-W alertly cleared it out into the neutral zone with 23 seconds left. However, Hart collected the puck at center ice, glided along the left side to the top of the faceoff circle, and buried a wrist shot just under the crossbar to win it for the Lions.
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Newton opened the scoring on a wrist shot by Kayla Kee early in the first period. Four minutes later, W-W tied it, as junior captain Jess Greenwood scored on a shot from the point.
W-W outshot the Lions, 11-3, in the opening frame, and though the play was more even in the second stanza, “[We] still had better scoring chances,” MacDonald said. One of their early chances paid off, when Patty Atkinson tallied to give W-W a 2-1 lead at the 2:25 mark.
But, near the end of the period, the Lions tied it, after winning a faceoff. Katie St. George converted a rebound with 30 seconds left.
“[We] played one of [our] best games of the year, and [were] not able to come away with the victory, but showed [we] can compete,” MacDonald said. “Playing your best is all one can expect from a player, and I know the girls on both teams know who was the better team tonight. We just don’t have the ‘W’ to go with the effort.”
