By Peter A. Sutters Jr.
I&M Staff Writer
It was a tough opening weekend for Nantucket High School’s club hockey team, as it dropped a pair of games to Easthampton by identical 9-1 scores.
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Photo by Jim Powers
Nantucket High School Whalers hockey action versus Easthampton. Saturday afternoon, December 8, 2007. Quinn McCusker, left. |
On a team dominated by freshmen, coach Kris Marsh said the lack of experience hurt his squad, but that was in no way an excuse for why they lost.
“Our kids didn’t show up at all,” he said. “Playing in their first game, at home in front of a crowd, I feel like instead of feeding off them, the crowd worked against them. We just self-destructed.”
Nantucket did itself no favors in the first game when the Whalers committed four penalties in the first period and while no goals were scored by Easthampton on the power plays, it set the tempo of the Whalers not being able to get the puck out of the zone.
“It was just stupid plays,” said Marsh. “Disciplined play is what every coach wants and we didn’t do that. You can’t take 20-minutes-plus of penalties in a game and expect to win. It will come back to bite you.”
The only Whaler goal of the first game was scored by Gary Caruso and the only goal of the second game was netted by Quinn McCusker.
The penalty-killing unit did do a good job of not allowing goals when they were down a man, but at full-strength, as a team, the Whalers gave up a lot of what Marsh called “garbage goals.”
“They basically picked our pocket,” said Marsh. “Every player was out of position, they took low, hard shots and swarmed in front of our goal for the rebound and scored a lot of garbage goals. That is how they beat us.”
When asked, Marsh was hard-pressed to take any positives out of the first two games.
“Positives? It’s over,” said Marsh. “Their first high school game is over and hopefully they won’t feel those kind of nerves again. If we do move up (to varsity level competition) next year, we’re going to be playing teams like that all the time, every weekend.”
Marsh said the month off in-between now and the next game will be good for the team as players will have a chance to work to improve their skills as well as concentrate on the game itself, rather than the first games of their high school careers.
“I don’t think it will happen again. It’s one of those effects of being a freshman,” said Marsh. “It’s an unsettling feeling being put into a situation you are not used to. I only worry that when we go on the road, they don’t get that way when they are heckled by an away team’s fan base.”
Another factor of the game on Saturday which showed Nantucket’s lack of experience was the behavior of the students watching the game. Twice the crowd had to be warned by the referees not to throw items on the ice or their team would have to forfeit the game.
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