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Marblehead, Beverly to lock horns for area supremecy

Thursday, January, 17 By Matt Williams
Staff writer

It's going to be a memorable weekend for sports fans around the North Shore, without question. There's Saturday night's boys hockey showdown between Peabody and Gloucester, in addition to the usual weekend slate of on-ice match-ups. Who could forget that the Patriots will look to bring their perfect season to the Super Bowl in Sunday's AFC Championship showdown against San Diego?

Alas, there's another big game on par with these. It might be one you haven't heard much about, but it's an enormous contest nonetheless. Beverly and Marblehead will skate against each other Saturday night at Salem State's Rockett Arena (7 p.m.) in a match-up of the North Shore's top two girls hockey teams.

"This is a huge game," said Lady Headers coach Emily Hudak. "I'm excited about it and the team is pretty excited about it too."

In one corner will be the old reliables from Marblehead, who come in winners of three straight to push their record to 5-3-1. They've been one of the top girls hockey programs around for some time and they'll be looking to assert themselves again in this one.

On the other side are the 6-5-0 Panthers, who you might call the new kids on the block. The program is in its third year and is looking for its first win against the Lady Headers as well as its first state tournament berth.

"We're entering the second half of our schedule and have some top notch competition. We'll have to bring our A game every night," said Beverly coach Fiona Rice. "Marblehead beat us twice last year (4-0 and 5-1) and has always been a tough team to play."

As always, goaltending will be of the utmost importance and both teams have standout sophomores between the pipes. Moe Bradley mans the net for Marblehead and boasts a 1.22 goals against average with three shutouts. In nine starts, she has conceded more than two goals only once.

The Panthers rely on Brianna Jackson, whose resume includes a 1.64 GAA and three shutouts. In 11 starts, she has held opponents to two goals or less eight times.

In other words, it might be reasonable to expect a low scoring affair when the North Cape League rivals meet in a battle that could go a long way towards determining which of the clubs challenges Waltham for the conference crown down the stretch.

"They have good goaltending, and especially in our league things are evenly matched. Nobody's really taken control yet," said Rice.

There will be plenty of talented skaters trying to put the puck past both netminders, though. Of the North Shore's top 11 scorers, eight will be on the ice Saturday night including the top two in the Panthers' Rachel Konaxis and the Lady Headers' all-time leader Tori Snow.

Snow (4 goals, 14 points) is the only active 100-point scorer in the area, but Konaxis (11-27) is sitting on 97 for her career and could join the elite century club as early as this weekend.

"(Rachel) is a good player and we'll have to be aware of when she's on the ice," said Hudak. "We'll make adjustments as the game goes on if things break down but if everybody sticks to their role it shouldn't be a problem."

Balanced scoring has been the recipe of late for the Lady Headers, who have exploded for 17 goals in their last three games. Eleven different players have lit the lamp for the year and eight of them have scored at least twice. Athena Simolaris has been the sparkplug with five of her team-high six goals coming in the last week.

"She's getting a lot more shots," said Hudak. "As a team we've been working on cycling the puck and working it out of the corners. We've been generating a lot more scoring chances." The teams are tied for second place with identical 2-1-0 records in league action and a look at common opponents reveals two evenly-matched clubs. Both handily defeated Lynn English, Masconomet and Peabody and each team lost one-goal games to Waltham. The only disparity is that the Lady Headers tied Acton-Boxboro 0-0 while the Panthers fell 3-0. "This game, and our last game, are both league games. If we want to win our league, we have to win these games," said Hudak.

Beverly has similar goals in mind.

"It'd be a really nice benchmark to get this one | our division is pretty tight and nobody will walk away with it," said Rice. "We only get a chance to play each team twice so we'd like to send a message the first time around."