March 6, 2025 – Story and photos by Joshua Ross
Playoff hockey is different.
Players are bigger, stronger, and faster. Goalies seem to stop everything. Every goal is the biggest goal of the season.
This means game plans tend to go out the window minutes into the first period and teams and coaches have to react to what’s in front of them. This has been the case for the Harborwomen the past two playoff games.
Hingham, who had only allowed six goals in their previous nine games, found themselves behind in Saturday’s 4-2 win over Shrewsbury and last night’s thrilling 2-1 win vs Belmont. Both games requiring some in-game changes and strategy adjustments.
In Saturday’s Round of 16 game, Coach Courtney Turner made the decision to swap goalies after two goals by Shrewsbury in the first period. This clearly got the attention of her players who tightened up the defense and didn’t allow another goal. Junior Katie Teague tied it up at 2-2 with just over two minutes to play in the second. Sophomore Shea Richardson scored the eventual game winner in the third with sophomore Hannah Lasch adding an insurance goal just 12 seconds later.
“We’ve been rotating goalies all year so I didn’t have a question about either of them,” Turner explained after Saturday’s win. “Izzi (Puleo) stepped up but they’ve been doing great throughout the whole year and I know I can go to either of them. Sometimes you’ve got a hot goaltender and sometimes you need to switch it up, it’s just not your day, but our goaltenders have been fantastic throughout the year so I have no questions about them.”
In last night’s quarterfinals game, the Harborwomen found themselves down once again early in the game. Turner found herself changing up the game plan a bit seeing the match-ups unfold on the ice.
Juniors Alexa Harris and Katie Teague were rolling in and out of the first and second lines all night and gave the Harborwomen great production. Teague, like always, brought the energy and was on top off her back-checking game causing major problems for Belmont’s power play unit. Harris was solid on the left wing throughout the game against Belmont’s top lines.
“Alexa stepped into a role tonight on the left side,” said Turner of Harris. “We needed a strong forward with playoff experience. Things change every game for us and we are using people to fill in the roles required for each game depending on the team we are playing. Alexa played her role perfectly tonight when we needed some consistent strength on the puck and in the middle of the ice breaking up plays.”
Just like last game where the Shrewsbury goalie stopped 43 of 47 shots, Belmont’s goalie was on top of her game. Turner explains that in those situation, the team has to “keep it simple” and “play to their strengths.”
“We talked a lot of transitions and strengths of our team,” Turner went on to say. “Maybe how we can capitalize on that and back-checking is definitely one of them. To back-check and go right around back on offense and catch the D off guard.”
As good as their defense and goaltending has been this season, their ultimate strength is their offense. In their three playoff games this year, six different players have scored. Lasch leads the team with four goals, followed by senior captain Caroline Doherty with three and Teague and Crean with two a piece.
Doherty was kept off the scoreboard in Saturday’s game, but opened up the scoring for Hingham early in the second period to tie the game a 1-1 last night. Its clear that she is the focus of every team’s defense and at points last night, had three and four players converging on her. With time winding down in the game, Doherty had the puck on her stick carrying into the offensive zone, drawing three players to her along the boards on the left of the net. This left one defender to cover both Lasch and sophomore Callie Crean in front of the net. Doherty’s pass to the front of the net caused the defender to cover Lasch leaving Crean wide open on the far side of the net to put in the game winner with :56 left.
“Coach told us to go out and get one done,” Crean describing the biggest play of the game. “Hannah Lasch had a great battle in front of the net and it just happened to slide on my stick and I got lucky enough to see it go in the back of the net.”
To score a game winning goal is something she will never forget, Crean is happy for the team’s success and getting a little retribution after last year’s playoff run.
“I was super excited,” she went on to say. “ It is a super special moment. We came so close (to the Final Four) last year and couldn’t get it quite done. It’s more getting it done for the team. We have a really special group here and I know that we’re going to do great things as we keep on going. It felt really good to prove it to ourselves and prove it to everyone around us.”
Confidence and mental toughness is the ultimate X-factor when you are this far in a State Championship run. You are facing competition that is most likely matched in talent. It comes down to experience and the ability to overcome challenging times in the game. This might be the biggest take aways from the last two games.
“I think that we’ve been able to overcome a lot adversity,” reflected Crean. “That’s the special thing about this team – we have grit. We’ve been able to come back in our last two games and I think when we get in those situations, we feel confident, which is huge going into these, hopefully, last two games of the season.”
The Harborwomen will next face the 4th seeded team of Haverhill, Pentucket, North Andover collaborative sometime this weekend for a chance to play at TD Garden next weekend for the D1 State Championship. Game details TBD.
GAME PHOTOS
