PEABODY — The Peabody/Lynnfield girls hockey team kept its hold of the top spot in the Northeastern Hockey League Wednesday evening, notching a 3-1 win over conference foe Newburyport in a home game at McVann-O’Keefe Memorial Rink. The Tanners needed to rally back from a one-goal deficit to pick up the win, rallying back with two goals in a two-minutes span.
“Newburyport is a good team and we knew we had to stick to what we do best if we wanted to compete with them,” said Peabody/Lynnfield coach Michelle Roach. “We got a number of scoring chances, but we weren’t getting the rebounds and putting them in. It was a tough battle the whole way.”
Senior captain Jen Flynn paced the Tanners’ offense with one goal and one assist, while senior Reilly Ganter and freshman Catie Kampersal each had one goal. Senior Chloe Shapleigh and sophomore Hannah Gromko each had one assist in the win, while goalie Audrey Buckley made a number of big saves in net.
“We started a bit slow, but this was a hardworking, character win for us,” said Roach. “Our goalie Audrey Buckley and our defensive core really kept us in this game, even though we had a lot of scoring chances. Luckily, we were able to make the plays when we needed to.”
The Tanners fell behind in the opening minutes of the game, when Newburyport’s Kiara Farrar found the back of the net less than four minutes in to make it 1-0 Clippers.
But Peabody/Lynnfield answered right back, scoring just two minutes later on a tally from Kampersal to knot the score at 1-1. Two minutes after that, Flynn put the Tanners up 2-1 with a goal of her own.
The score remained there through an uneventful second period, then Newburyport managed to get a few decent scoring chances in the third period. But Buckley stood tall in net for the Tanners, meeting every challenge and keeping Peabody/Lynnfield ahead the whole way.
Finally, with less than 10 seconds to go and with the Newburyport goalie pulled, Ganter scored on a 150-foot shot from her own defensive zone to seal the 3-1 victory.
Peabody/Lynnfield (5-1) plays on the road at Beverly/Danvers Friday evening (5:15).
“We know that we play in a tough league, and every night we need to come with our best if we want to win,” said Roach. “We want to finish strong this year, and even though there aren’t technically any league titles this year, we want to finish the year as the league’s top team for the third year in a row. That’s the motivation moving forward for us.”