HINGHAM – In a tie game, it’s sometimes difficult to find some silver linings, but despite losing an unbeaten record, Hingham came away a champion.
The Harborwomen fell off the pace of the perfect season as Duxbury pulled off a 2-2 tie in the second tilt between the Patriot League girls hockey foes this season.
Hingham (15-0-1, 9-0-1) won the season series 1-0-1 thanks to a 3-2 victory in January, so the No.1 Division 1 team in the MIAA Power Rankings all but secured the Patriot League title over the defending champions.
Marshfield sits in third place in the league but already has two losses with one coming to the sticks of the Harborwomen.
In the first, Hingham dominated puck possession and limited the Dragons (11-3-2, 7-1-2) to only two shots on net. But the penalty kill unit for Duxbury head coach Dan Najarian was outstanding as the defense killed off five-plus minutes of penalty minutes down the stretch, including a five-on-three advantage for 35 seconds towards the end of the period.
But senior captain Addy Garrity continued to be a thorn in the side of Duxbury as she scored with 20.1 left in the period just as the power play ended on a pretty wrister after securing the puck along the boards. It was Garrity’s 98th career point and ninth goal of the season as Katie Teague was credited with the assist.
“We work on the power play quite a bit and try to have our top power play go against our top penalty killers in practice and it shows,” said Najarian. “Goals at the end of periods can be devastating or they can uplift a team so, we responded well in the second period, and I thought we were the better team in the second period, and I thought it was pretty even in the third.”
It was a Jekyll and Hyde type of game for both teams as Hingham dominated in the first 15 minutes and Duxbury took over in the second. Ceci Tremante tied things up for the Dragons at 3:35 of the second with Abby Harrington and Zoey Madigan picking up the assists. Tremante popped home her own rebound out in front of the crease inside the right post for the equalizer.
The third period was Duxbury showing off in the first few minutes of the period as Megan Carney made the Harborwomen pay on a turnover in their own end of the ice in the first 50 seconds of the period to give Duxbury the 2-1 lead.
But Hingham refused to go away as Callie Crean brought things even again at 2-2 at 4::52 of the third and even though overtime produced some highlights, including three-on-three down the stretch, head coach Courtney Turner knew they were in for a battle with Duxbury.
“We won the first game but obviously (coming in) we are undefeated, everyone wants to beat us, and we know we are going to get everyone’s best game. But I don’t think this was our best game,” said Turner. “But we have to learn from it but there are a lot of good things to take away, too.”