PEABODY — The Peabody/Lynnfield girls hockey team, fresh from having completed the best season in its history, certainly got a dose of postseason reality Saturday when it found out that it will play St. Mary’s in the opening round of the MIAA Division 1 state tournament.
After all, the Spartans have won five state titles, four in Division 1. They are the fifth seed with a 15-3-2 record. And they are, like Peabody, working on their best season since their most recent state title in 2013.
The good news for the Tanners is that, if anyone knows a thing or two about St. Mary’s girls hockey, and has the bio to back it up, it’s Peabody coach Michelle Roach, a former St. Mary’s assistant coach and one of the trailblazing female hockey pioneers who were there when the Spartans’ program began in 2001-2002.
A Lynn native and resident, Roach cut her hockey teeth at Connery at the age of 10 when she started playing in the Lynn Youth Hockey program.
Roach, who had played on the boys junior varsity hockey team as a freshman and sophomore, made the leap to the girls team her junior year.
“They didn’t have a girls’ team, so my only choice was to play with the boys, so that’s what I did,” said Roach. “My father, Bob, was instrumental in getting the program going. He went to all the meetings and ended up coaching as an assistant the first four or five years. When the school finally voted to start a girls team, there were about 12 or 13 of us who played on the team my junior year when it was club. There were only four or five of us who had ever skated before, let alone play hockey, and everyone else was brand new. I didn’t come off the ice much, needless to say. We just were a bunch of girls who wanted to play hockey. We had a few forwards and a couple D who had played before and a coach (Todd Langlis) who really believed in us.”
The following year in the Spartans’ first season as a varsity program, Roach served as captain and led the team in scoring, earning Eastern Mass all-star honors, CCL all-league honors and all-scholastic honors. She led the Spartans to their first-ever state tournament, scoring three goals in the Spartans’ first round 9-6 loss to Watertown.
Roach also served as captain of the Spartans’ cross country and outdoor track teams.
Roach moved on to play three years on the women’s team at St. Michael’s College, becoming the first of many accomplished St. Mary’s alums to play collegiate hockey. She hung up her skates prior to her senior year when concussions and pneumonia cut her career short.
Playing career, that it.
In 2009-2011, she was back at her alma mater as an assistant coach.
“It was an incredible run, and to be a part of those teams that had a 100-game unbeaten streak was just the best,” she said. “I still remember when the streak was broken, it was overtime against Hingham in the 2011 quarterfinals. We had won our third straight state championship my first year, then won again in 2013. It was great working for Frank (Pagliuca) and I think I learned so much from him.
“It was incredible to be on the ground floor of the program, then return to see the program’s growth as well as be a part of it. It far surpassed anything I had imagined when I put on the first jersey at 16 years old – we built something really cool that has made such a huge impact in Massachusetts girls’ hockey.”
Fast forward to the summer of 2015 when Roach was hired as the new coach of a fledgling Peabody/Lynnfield girls hockey team. She inherited a team that won just four games the year before. That first year, the team set a program record with six wins, then last year, the team qualified for the Division 1 tournament for the first time in program history with a regular season record of 9-8-3 before losing in the preliminary round round to Arlington, 5-1.
Can this be the year when Peabody breaks though and gets that first ever tournament win?
“We play a tough regular season schedule and we know we are going up against a very good team, but we are ready for the challenge,” said Roach, who was inducted into the St. Mary’s Varsity Club Hall of Fame in 2016. “I know Frank’s style of play and his coaching, but the bottom line is whoever comes ready to play will win the game. We have built a program that cannot be underestimated by anyone, in my opinion, and we can play with anyone, and we are not done yet by any means.”
Roach said the key to the game is to stay out of the penalty box and to put shots on net.
“We have a great goalie in Abby Buckley, we have a girl who can score at will in Sammi (Mirasolo), and she is even a threat when short-handed. If we play fundamentally sound hockey and everyone does her their job, we will do well, and I fully expect to. I am excited to play this game.”
The Tanners may have one secret weapon that nobody else can lay claim to as when the St. Mary’s team hits their home locker room, Roach will be front and center.
“Frank has a tradition of putting pictures of all of his players who go on to play college hockey on the wall of the home locker room, so that’s why my picture, as the first player in St. Mary’s history to play in college, is on that wall. I think it is so ionic, when you think of all the teams we could have played, it’s St. Mary’s where I was there when it all started.”
Under Roach, the Peabody/Lynnfield program has grown by leaps ane bounds.
The Tanners set program records for most wins (11), most games above .500 (four), fewest games needed to clinch a tournament spot (17), and most times qualified for the tournament (2). Sophomore Sammie Mirasolo set a single-season scoring record with 41 points and became the first Tanner to win a league (Northeastern Hockey League) MVP award.
The Tanners also set a program record for the their highest tournament seed (25th) and finished with a program best record of 11-7-2.