PEABODY — The Peabody/Lynnfield girls hockey team’s depth proved too much for cross-city rival Bishop Fenwick Monday morning at the Fourth Annual Girls Carlin Cup at James McVann-Louis O’Keefe Rink.
The Tanners pulled off a three-peat, defeating the Crusaders in a lopsided rout, 9-1.
Fenwick actually had the early lead, 1-0, on a first period goal by senior captain Lexi McNeil, but Peabody rattled off nine unanswered goals to to seal the victory.
Fenwick junior goaltender Daphne Jalbert was the recipient of her team’s Coach Robert “Bo” Tierney MVP award. She was under siege from start to finish, finishing with 38 saves. Jalbert single handedly kept the Crusaders in the game throughout the first two periods, with Peabody on top, 3-1.
But the floodgates opened in the third when Peabody scored three goals in the span of 48 seconds to put the game out of reach.
Senior Jess Robert was the recipient of her team’s Tierney MVP award, finishing with a hat trick and one assist.
“Jess plays wherever we put her, she plays D sometimes and also forward and in the last minute of a period or game, she is one of the players we want to have out there,” said Peabody coach Michelle Roach. “She worked so hard and (being named MVP) is more than well-deserved. She played fantastic and was just flying around out there the whole night.
“Overall, we worked hard the whole game. They did a good job possessing the puck on our neutral zone regroups and we got quality shots on net tonight. We were doing the right things and we just kept having to keep chipping away at it.”
“We played hard and it was only 3-1 after two periods,” said Fenwick coach Doug Anderson. “We had to make some changes today with Jill (Mattucci) having to go back on defense, but Daphne was just great today. We just didn’t have enough depth, but our girls competed. I was able to play everyone, but now we just have to move on.”
Peabody took control of the game from the opening puck drop, but Fenwick’s defense, which blocked several shots, and Jalbert, who took care of the ones that got through, kept the Tanners off the board.
Despite being pinned in their own defensive end for most of the period, Fenwick made good on its first shot of the game when McNeil polished off a Gabby Davern rebound in front of the net and tapped it home with 1:15 left in the period. Grace Morey also picked up an assist.
Peabody needed only 13 seconds to answer. Kat DiGiulio dug the puck out of the boards on the right and drilled a low wrister just inside the far post to make it a 1-1 game.
Neither team got much going early in the second period, thanks to Jalbert and counterpart Abby Buckley, who each made a couple of spectacular saves.
Peabody picked up the pace midway through the period and cashed in at the 6:16 mark when Thibedeau blasted a hard shot that was tipped by Robert. Jalbert got her stick on it, but the puck popped up and over her head into the net, with assists going to Thibedeau and Sammie Mirasolo.
Twenty-two seconds later, Jenn Flynn got in the action. DiGiulio broke loose and got off two quick shots. Flynn was there to poke home the second rebound to make it 3-1.
Maria Pierce stretched the lead to 4-1 three minutes into the final period (from Flynn and DiGiulio), then the Tanners broke the game wide open on three quick ones by Robert, Sadie Gearan (on the only power play of the game) and Mirasolo to push the lead to 6-1 with nine minutes left.
Both teams went to their benches over the final six minutes. Robert completed her hat trick with 3:31 to play (Lily Piscatelli assist).
Jenna Mack capped the scoring with her first varsity goal at the 14:59 mark (from Charlotte Grant and Elise Staunton).
Roach said a minor adjustment after the first period paid off handsomely.
“We had too many shots right at the goalie, so we talked about shot selection,” she said. “I thought we had a lot of good quality chances where our shot selection was a little bit off, but we improved on that as the game went on.”
Both teams set program records for wins and hoping to polish off the season with a win on Wednesday to improve their seeding in the upcoming tournaments.
Fenwick (11-7-1) plays Oakmont at noon in its senior day game at McVann-O’Keefe, while Peabody (13-4-2) follows at 2 p.m. with a non-league game against HPNA.
“We expect to win our senior game to get to 12-7-1 and then will just have to see where the chips fall,” Anderson said.
“Right now, it looks like we could have our first ever home tournament game at McVann, so we are in a great spot right now,” Roach said. “We earned a share of the league title for the first-time ever and we also did something today we have not done all year and that was to stay out of the penalty box.”