After 4 days of practice the boys J.V. hockey team travelled to Amelia Rink in Westfield Massachusetts to scrimmage their perennial early – season scrimmage partner Westfield High School.
We went down with our team hoping to get a better sense of what we had in the ranks as we begin our 2023-2024 season. Westfield has always been a good team to play against and this year would be no exception. The Doors were ready to start the season and we jumped to an early 1-0 lead midway through the first period. Alex Sotirhos would score the season’s first goal for us and as we started the second period Cooper Brozak scored a short-handed goal giving us a 2-0 lead.
The second part of the second period was all Westfield as they would rebound to score the game’s next 3 goals; after two periods our hosts led by a 3-2 score.
The third period was an offensive display by both teams and when I write this I’ll add not a lot of defense was happening in the last stanza. We would outscore our opponents in the period by a 4-2 margin giving us a 6-5 advantage after the time ran out on the clock. Going in to our first week of games we learned there is much work to be done on the offensive end of what we bring to our games. Freshman Connor Hevesy gave us a great effort in his Big Green debut on the ice. He kept us in the scrimmage all afternoon as we allowed far too many odd-man rushes against us. Alexander Rolfe, Alex Sotirhos, and Cooper were the goal scorers for us.
Improved team defense and decision-making will be the focus all week as we work to get better as a team heading into games this week against Eaglebrook (Wed.) and Choate (Sat.)
First game will be against Eaglebrook at home on Wednesday at 4:15 p.m.