CONCORD – Through two periods, it didn’t look good.
The Concord High girls’ hockey team seemed a step slow. Passes sailed a bit wide, shots missed the net, no goals were to be found.
But in the third period, with time winding down, the Tide rose to the task.
Trailing 1-0 with the goalie pulled and just 1:13 remaining, Greta Norton sent a wrist shot from the right point over the shoulder of Lebanon-Stevens-Kearsarge goalie Kristen Garzia to even the score. Then, just 18 seconds into overtime, Leah Beauregard snuck past the defense and emphatically found the back of the net for the 2-1 victory.
The jubilation that followed the dramatic overtime win was hard to miss.
“It’s a good win,” head coach Tim Herbert said. “This is a top team in our division, so anytime you beat one of the top teams is great, but also for our players, it was a confidence-builder I think they needed. They trusted themselves, they listened to us, they did the things we asked and then they come out with a 2-1 overtime win. You can’t ask for a better success story.”
Lebanon-Stevens-Kearsarge (2-3-0) got on the board first with a goal from Greta Barber at 4:05 in the second. For the remainder of the period, it looked like that was all the visitors would need to come away with the win.
But perhaps the Raiders were a bit too comfortable with the 1-0 lead, frequently icing the puck to kill time, especially in the third period. That allowed Concord (3-2-0) to hang around and finally, after no shortage of third-period chances, find the elusive equalizer.
“That confidence those young kids developed, they started going out there, they started attacking in space on ice they needed, and that was all the difference,” Herbert said of his team’s third-period performance. “We saw the confidence when we had the possession of the puck, from our senior forwards to our freshman forwards; they attacked whoever had the puck on their team, creating turnovers and opportunities for us. That was it. That was the big difference.”
Wednesday’s performance was almost a mirror image of the Tide’s game last Wednesday against Pinkerton when Concord started fast but fell off late and lost, 4-2. Since then, Herbert’s team has won back-to-back games and has shown some growth, especially from the younger players.
The win was also impressive because the Tide had to kill off five penalties. Beauregard’s game-winner was scored on the penalty kill, and the Raiders did not capitalize on any of their five power-play opportunities.
“Whole-team effort to win this one tonight,” Herbert said. “Every player out there for every shift they played tonight, they worked hard. We don’t practice a lot of PK work because I don’t expect penalties. We had a lot of penalties tonight. Kids who’d never done the PK but have watched it or we drew it up for, executed, so from the top down, great performance all around. The team had a great game.”