CANTON — Saturday may have been the last game that North Andover resident Gabby Harty suited up as a member of the HPNA girls hockey team, but she said next year — which is supposed to be the year for the program — she’ll be the team’s No. 1 fan, even if she’s 2,000 miles away.
“I’m going to be rooting them on and I’ll come back to watch their games and get to some practices (during the winter college break),” said Harty, who will attend the University of Denver for the next four years to study biological science.
Harty and the team’s other senior, Rachel Keating, also of North Andover, did a wonderful job according to head coach Gary Kane, leading this year’s younger and less experienced team back to state tournament play. That road became bumpy at times, especially going up against the incredibly competitive Merrimack Valley/Dual County Large School Division 1, which featured all seven teams qualifying for state tournament play.
HPNA finished the regular season with an 8-9-3 overall record, before defeating Natick in the first round of the Division 1 state tournament, and then bowing out to the No. 5 seed Hingham, 3-0, Saturday at the Canton Ice House.
In their previous six games, HPNA played its best hockey – losing tough games to two of the top teams in Division 1 in Malden Catholic (3-1) and No. 1 seed Notre Dame of Hingham (1-0), while defeating an outstanding Peabody/Lynnfield team (2-1).
All that helped get the team into the state tournament and create some problems against a strong skating and powerful Hingham team.
“We have a huge incoming freshman class coming next year and I think they’re going to be great,” said Harty. “They’ll have the leadership too with (ten returning juniors). I think it’s good for (the younger players) to get this state tournament experience. You’re not always going to have great success here in the tournament, but at least they have been out here already.”
HPNA will return its two All-League stars in forward Gabi Locke and goalie Julianna Taylor.
“Julianna had such a great season. That’s the hard part (of losing Saturday) is she is such a fighter. The last few seconds of the game, she’s rearing and ready to go,” said Kane.
Besides the two of them, Kendall LaRiviere, Paige Nottingham, Mia Kmiec and Quinn Bennett are just a some of the players who were part of last year’s 13-win season and part of this year’s 9-win season. and they’ll be getting some help.
“We’ll have the entire team back except two seniors, and we will have some strong incoming freshmen coming in so we’re really excited about next year,” said Kane.
Twitter: @JamiePote