Area Hockey
Report

In Lake Division Playoff hockey action this past week, the Northfield Marauders boys’ high school hockey team (#3) won their first round game against U-32 (#14), 4-3 on Thursday night. Nick Boyce scored the game-winning goal with 1:36 to play off an assist from Alex Green.

Green also scored the first goal for the Marauders to tie the game at 1-1. Tyler Cole and Tyler Goodrich also scored for Northfield (14-5-1) and Stephan Wuorinen had 22 saves.

This victory brought the home team to a playoff rematch with
archrival, The Harwood Highlanders (#6). Last year, at the Ice Center in Waterbury, the underdog Marauders (#14) took the favored Harwood home team (#3) to overtime, narrowly losing after an exciting battle, another in a long history of games between the two schools. This season’s edition left Northfield disappointed in the final outcome. Harwood won in two overtimes on Saturday night in Northfield, 5-4. The visitors took the quarterfinal game after trailing 3-1 and 4-3.

Tyler Goodrich scored four goals for the Marauders. Stephan Wuorinen collected 27 saves for Northfield.

Despite the final game loss, the team has a lot to be proud of and a lot to look forward to. This year’s record, 14-6-1 was a huge turn around from last season’s 4-15-2. The team will be losing several key players, but will add many players from the very successful Bantam team, 24-5-1.

The Northstars team was eliminated from the tournament after losing to Stowe by a goal. Mississquoi went on to become State Champs with a 7-1 victory over Stowe. Many of the Randolph and Northfield players have reached the end of their youth hockey days, but will be very exciting to watch at the high school level. Our area could be represented by as many as five varsity members in 2008-2009. We congratulate Alex Green (HS), Sam Dyer, Dakota Enberg, Ben LeBlanc, Cody Martin, and Alex Start (Bantams) for their great seasons and wish them all well in their futures.

B Team

The NAHA Squirt B team played against the Barre Blades Tuesday night in South Burlington. Although they played a very solid game, the Barre offense was too much for them, ending their season by handing them a 4-0 loss.

Five of the Squirts, including Randolph’s Jacob Kaplan, will be moving up to the PeeWee level (11- and 12-year-olds) next year.