Play It Again Sports in Pembroke

PEMBROKE – As a freshman, Caroline Batchelder has plenty more than varsity games left to play. At least one more this winter and and so iii more full seasons worth.

Just she might never have a bigger dark.

Or score a bigger goal.

Batchelder completed a hat trick with 1:21 left in the second viii-minute overtime flow Monday night to lift the 13th-seeded Archbishop Williams High girls hockey team to a 3-2 upset win over No. 4 Pembroke in the Circular of 16 of the Division two country tournament.

"Information technology was an all-team effort, every single goal," said Batchelder, who lives in Braintree. "I couldn't have done it without them. Every play leads up to every goal."

More than:Observe all the S Shore MIAA high school tournament scorers and highlights here (March 7)

With the teams skating three-on-3 for the second OT, Batchelder took an offensive-zone faceoff in the left-fly circumvolve. The puck skidded into the corner, where teammate Shea Nolan, a freshman from Quincy, battled standout Pembroke 8th-form defenseman Mary Quatrale for the puck all the way behind the Titans net.

Batchelder drifted to the right postal service, grabbed the loose puck on her forehand and stuffed information technology within the postal service, triggering a wild celebration.

"I didn't even come across it get in," Batchelder said. "I heard everybody (cheering) and and so I felt everybody on me, and it felt great."

In the quarterfinals (appointment, site, time TBA) Williams (fourteen-5-3) will face either No. 21 Barnstable (11-8) or No. v Natick (thirteen-6-2). Those teams square off on Wednesday.

Mayhap by that time the Bishops volition have caught their jiff.

"Little tiring," Batchelder said with a laugh. "I think that'southward the longest game I've ever played in, yeah."

More:Archbishop Williams girls hockey uses three-goal flurry to oust Weymouth in playoffs

"That was crawly," said Archies first-twelvemonth passenger vehicle Doug Nolan, a Quincy native who played pro hockey, mostly in the U.S. minor leagues and in Europe. "So many emotions in that game. Kids are crying on the demote. You can't breathe. Information technology was dorsum and forth. Our goalie (eighth-grader Evelyn Lacey, of Braintree) played unbelievable; she made some huge saves. Nosotros just got a squeamish fiddling lucky bounce at the finish of the game.

"That's one of those games that you don't want either team to lose because they both played their butts off."

No one had to tell Pembroke how cruel a playoff overtime loss tin be. The Titans (xvi-half dozen) saw their 10-game winning streak snapped in agonizing manner.

"We didn't get the result we wanted," coach Nib Flynn said, "merely there was no quit. We left it all out there."

More:Century marker: Pembroke High girls hockey plan celebrates win No. 100 (and 101)

Pembroke brutal behind 2-0 as Batchelder struck twice in the first period, but the hosts stabilized the game after that and eventually knotted it up on tertiary-period goals from Quatrale (8:07 left) and Jen Birolini (iii:27 remaining). The Titans had several gilded chances in both extra periods – the beginning i was played 4-on-iv – but Lacey twice stopped Birolini (team-loftier 26 goals) on breakaways and denied Megan Dorsey on another to keep the score level.

"I give Archbishop Williams a lot of credit; they came to play," Flynn said. "They worked hard, they were resilient. They were chirapsia us at our own game at the showtime; they were all over us on the forecheck and they actually kept the states downwardly. We couldn't exercise anything. I requite them credit; they're a good hockey team.

"But I'grand proud of how we had a piffling scrap better second period and and so we really came out in the 3rd period and got a couple of goals. In the overtime we had our chances. The puck only wouldn't become in the internet for u.s.. Kind of full circle – early in the yr the puck wouldn't go in the net for us. That overtime was (the aforementioned matter). The goaltender for Archbishop Williams actually did a phenomenal job."

Pembroke will graduate five seniors – goaltenders Kaleigh Murphy (who was strong in this 1) and Alison Stone, forwards Dorsey (fourteen goals, 22 assists, 36 points) and Erin Doran (6-vi--12), and defenseman Allison Zeoli (i-three--four).

"The leadership on this team is 2d to none," Flynn said. "The five of them together really brought this team together. We started out ii-4 and we just stuck with information technology. Those seniors stuck with it and the younger players responded to them. They worked hard for them. We haven't had a group of leaders like that. Their piece of work ethic leaked downwards to the younger kids. They really did a fantastic job, all v of them."

The cupboard is hardly empty for Pembroke, though. Since catastrophe their co-op with Whitman-Hanson beginning with the 2014-fifteen season, Titans are 111-43-xiv as a solo act and should proceed to thrive with young standouts such as Quatrale (17 goals), Birolini, and 8th-graders Hannah D'Angelo (6-seven–xiii) and Lauren Perry (5-9–fourteen).

"Yeah, the future is bright," Flynn said. "We've got some freshmen and sophomores who are really going to first to contribute next yr."

Williams' roster as well skews young – four seniors, six juniors, no sophomores (go effigy), 4 freshmen, five eighth-graders and three seventh-graders.

"Information technology'southward a (grade) vii-through-12 schoolhouse," Batchelder remarked. "Everybody has an equal risk to play varsity. If you've got the skill, y'all play."

Batchelder has been playing varsity for two years, and no i on Archies' bench seemed surprised that the moment was not too big for her.

"She can score goals," Nolan said. "She plays with some swag. She's a confident kid. She can shoot the puck. She's got bully hands. Tough child. Fun to be around."

"She brings free energy," said senior Karaline O'Toole, of Quincy, who skates on a line with her younger sister, Kate, an eighth-grader, and Batchelder. "She calls for the puck when she's open. She knows where to shoot the puck when nosotros need it. She'southward there when we need her."

Batchelder was definitely there when the Bishops needed her on Monday, and now they become to play again. Pembroke had won fourteen of xv coming in, merely Williams is ruddy-hot, likewise, going 8-one-2 since snapping out of a 3-game losing streak at midseason.

"We had a trivial 3-game slump in the centre of the season," Batchelder said. "We came out (of the gate) with a 6-two record, then nosotros got into that little slump and so nosotros came back flying and here we are."

The Bishops demand 3 more than wins for a state crown. Whether or not they go it, this flavour has been a huge improvement on the last two, when Williams went a combined 12-25-4. The Bishops' Round-of-32 win over Weymouth was the program'southward first postseason victory since the 2017-eighteen team made it to the state semifinals.

"Very physically draining and really emotional," Karaline O'Toole said of Monday'southward instant-classic victory. "I've been working for this since I was a freshman, so it's really memorable."

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Source: https://www.patriotledger.com/story/sports/high-school/ice-hockey/2022/03/07/archbishop-williams-girls-hockey-upsets-pembroke-miaa-division-2-round-16/9420096002/

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