BEVERLY — Championship teams know how to pick each other up and erase a mistake. That’s exactly what the Beverly High girls hockey team had to do Wednesday night to officially become a championship team.
Behind a furious forecheck, a near perfect power play, team-wide belief and a hat trick from junior Asuka Keough, the Panthers shook off an early deficit and scored the last seven goals of the night to put away Winthrop, 7-1, at Bourque Arena.
Beverly (15-3 overall, 9-1 NEHL) came in needing a win or a tie to take the Northeastern Hockey League title for the first time in nine seasons. Winthrop (now 9-4-3, 7-2-1) could have snatched the crown with a victory, but the Panthers dug deep to make sure that didn’t happen.
“The girls had the skill and the talent to do this and they went out and made it happen,” said Beverly’s first-year head coach Chris LeBlanc. “You can’t win a league without great players and I think this shows we have some of the best players in our league.”
Senior winger Meredith Johnston power play goal early in the third period stretched her team’s lead to three (4-1) just a few minutes after Asuka Keough took a beautifully threaded pass from Johnston and lit the lamp.
With the lead in hand and the title in their sights, the Panthers did not relent. Winthrop had a parade to the penalty box in the middle part of the stanza, at one point taking three straight minors to give the hosts three different elongated periods on 5-on-3 time. Haylee Freeman lit the lamp at 7:33 to make it a 5-1 contest. Keough then finished off her hat trick with another power play marker in the waning moments.
“Asuka’s a special player and that top line (Keough, Avery LeBlanc and Johnston) works so well together. They find each other in open space and they’re very dangerous,” Chris LeBlanc said.
Captain Morgan Linskey put the icing on the cake with a shorthanded breakaway goal. In all, only two of Beverly’s seven goals came at even strength.
Beverly finished the game 4-for-7 on the man advantage, while going 3-for-3 on the kill. If not for some great work by Viking goalie Riley Towse (28 saves), the score could have ballooned even further.
A wild, action-packed second period that saw six minor penalties called in a span of just 10 minutes finally opened up the scoring. After the Vikings took an initial lead on Amelia Serino’s unassisted shorthanded goal, Beverly could have been in big trouble when Winthrop got a full 2-minute 5-on-3 power play thanks to two different infractions on the same shift.
With captains and defensemen Morgan Linskey and Ashley Freitas never leaving the ice during the penalty kill, Beverly held serve. Then, on a power play of their own, Avery LeBlanc sniped the top corner of the net to make it a 1-1 game.
Eighth grade winger Zoie Abell’s all-heart hustle play delivered Beverly its first lead. Steaming her way to a loose puck that was squirting down ice, she stopped just below the end line to avoid a Winthrop check, then sent a perfect pass to the tape of Keough for a one-time shot and a 2-1 lead.
“We’ve been emphasizing short shifts and going all out, using that speed to get to loose pucks,” said Chris LeBlanc. “Zoie did that on that one, in a big way.”
Perhaps the biggest moments of the game came as Beverly rallied around eighth grade goalie Avery Mason, who finished with 14 saves. After losing track of the puck on Winthrop’s lone goal, her teammates hugged her, made sure she was ready to stop pucks moving forward, and she played perfectly the rest of the way.
“The girls believe in each other and they support each other,” LeBlanc added.
The Panthers controlled much of the opening period, outshooting the Vikings by a 13-6 margin. Only a couple of alert stops by Towse kept Beverly from getting on the board in the first 15 minutes, with a doorstep robbery of sophomore Freeman on a one-timer and a denial of Keough at the far post being among the highlights.
In a rarely-seen ending, Beverly was actually awarded a penalty shot with 30 seconds to play. Since they already led by six goals, though, the clock was running and time expired, so the penalty shot was never taken.
Beverly 7, Winthrop 1
at Bourque Arena, Beverly
Winthrop 0 1 0 1
Beverly 0 2 5 7
Scoring summary
First period: No scoring.
Second period: W, Amelia Serino (un), shg, 2:30; B, Avery LeBlanc (Haylee Freeman), ppg, 8:59; B, Asuka Keough (Zoie Abell), 13:32.
Third period: B, Asuka Keough (Meredith Johnston, LeBlanc), 1:31; B, Johnston (Keough, Morgan Linskey), ppg, 2:55; B, Freeman (Keough, LeBlanc), ppg, 7:33; B, Keough (Freeman, Johnston), ppg, 11:54; Linskey (un), shg, 13:00.
Saves: W, Riley Towse 28 ; B, Avery Mason 14.
Records: W, 9-4-3; B, 15-3-0.