RAYNHAM – It was about a year ago the first ever New England Future Stars Girls U14 Championship game was played. An upstart South Shore Sabercats squad knocking off the top ranked Marlboro Thunder in overtime to claim the division’s inaugural prize.
The game’s second incarnation was played this past Sunday at the Raynham IcePlex and done so with similar overtones. A North Shore Stingrays team that gelled and rallied as the season moved along pitted against a Natick Chill team that had been out in front of the competition all season. Again extra time was needed, but this time it was the favored coming out on top, the Chill scoring the 2015 Girls U14 Championship with a 2-1, double overtime victory.
The Chill had been a dominant fixture atop the division’s standings all season. They had scored more goals than everyone else and they had given up fewer. Only twice were they involved in a contest decided by less than three goals. There was one team, however, that had managed to give them fits throughout the summer. The team standing across from them on Sunday.
The North Shore Stingrays. The only team to have beaten the Chill this season.
“They didn’t care about our record, they didn’t care what we’d done in the past. I think they just came and took us on that day,” Chill coach Mike Heyde said of his finals opponent. “They just played the way they should. Straight up, didn’t change their system.
“They played us straight up and played us hard, almost outworked us at times.”
An upset seemed in the works from the beginning, the Stingrays all over the Chill and pouncing on the lead just 32-seconds into the contest. North Shore forward Alex Johnson wasting no time making her presence felt, firing a wrist shot into the back of the net for the 1-0 lead. Natick re-tied the game later in the opening frame, the score coming from Neve Ley at 9:15, but there was little doubt who owned the first period.
North Shore remained in control throughout the second period, but neither team was able to add to the scoring column. Natick finally began to show their dominant form in the third, taking over play in the final 15 minutes of regulation, but just as their goaltender – All-Star Game MVP Caroline McDonough – had done to their foe, Stingray netminder Mary Honan shutdown the Chill.
With tension mounting as the clock disappeared, both teams put up a quality scoring chance with about a minute remaining. The Stingrays riffled a shot off the post. The Chill collected the puck and gained a step in transition, but could not get a clean shot off. Regulation was not going to be enough to decide the contest.
“My nerves were going, especially going 5-on-5, 4-on-4, 3-on-3. That’s intense, especially in the finals,” Heyde said. “Back-and-forth, both teams deserved to win.”
Overtime arrived and with it more flashbacks to last season, the underdog swarming, rarely a chance going for the favorite. The Stingrays offense was dazzling with chance after chance, odd-man rush after odd-man rush, but McDonough was more so, stonewalling every attempt.
“Caroline is a game-changer,” Heyde said of his goaltender. “I’m so lucky to have her. She kept us in so many games. She’s the reason why we won.
“Without her that would have been a whole different game.”
Neither regulation time, nor an additional 10-minute, 4-on-4 overtime were enough to decide a champion. Next up was a 3-on-3, double overtime session.
With McDonagh doing the yeoman’s work at one end, the Chill offense struggled to generate opportunities for themselves on the other. All it was going to take was just one good one, however, and that came at 5:16 of the second overtime.
Off a long rush, Chill forward Lauren Jackson carried through the neutral zone, into the offensive end, peeled off towards the high-slot and released the puck towards Honan.
“With Lauren coming down the wing, that’s the perfect angle,” Heyde said. “Great shot up under the crossbar. Phenomenal.”
A winner had to be named, but it was not by much. Jackson’s shot was perfectly placed to sneak past Honan and in. The Natick Chill named 2015 Girls U14 Champions.
