Duxbury snaps Canton hex, takes home hockey title

Dragons' 5-2 win caps glittering 24-1-2 year

As Duxbury head coach Dan Najarian put it, Canton had become his Dragons’ “kryptonite” after a three-game dry spell against the Bulldogs, including being eliminated in last year’s Div. 2 semifinals.

The winless streak came to a glorious end for the second-ranked Dragons Sunday as they rolled to a 5-2 win over No. 4 Canton in the Div. 2 finals at TD Garden.

Duxbury got a pair of tallies from Madeleine Greenwood and a goal and assist from McKenna Colella as the Green Dragons finished a stellar 24-1-2 record. Canton, which lost to Algonquin in the 2022 final, had tallies from three different players to finish at 19-3-4.

“It’s like that four-title team from the 2010s was a thing of yesteryear,” said Najarian. “It’s been nine years and I couldn’t be prouder of the girls. We had five goals and had four of them by freshmen and sophomores. It’s encouraging for the future too.”

Duxbury was aggressive from the first faceoff and put the Bulldogs in a seemingly deep hole in the opening 15 minutes. The Dragons outshot Canton 6-1 and kept the pressure up in Canton’s end with relentless forechecking for almost the entire period.

The effort in the Bulldogs’ end finally paid off when Greenwood took a Colella feed and blasted a shot past Carolyn Durand for the 1-0 lead on a power play at 7:57. Duxbury went up 2-0 with 1:43 left in the period, this time on a nifty backhander by Colella.

Canton, which outshot Duxbury 6-2 in the second stanza, was more tenacious and got a goal back on a low slap shot outside the right faceoff circle by Tori Carr to make it 2-1.

Despite outplaying the Dragons in the second, the Bulldogs still found themselves down two goals when Greenwood, who was set up in front of the Canton net, redirected a Colella slapshot for the 3-1 advantage and her second tally with 1:06 left.

Canton took advantage of an early power play in the third to cut it to 3-2. Audrey Koen was left unchecked next to the right post and Duxbury goaltender Anna McGinty had no shot when Koen fired a shot in after corralling a pass from Maya Battista.

But that would be as close as the Bulldogs would get as Duxbury added tallies from Addyson Harrington and Parker Metzler to secure the crown.

“We were able to run three and four lines over and over again. It just wears teams down,” said Najarian. “If you win a lot of third periods you’re going to win a lot of hockey games. Canton had a great push and obviously their coach had them fired up. We were able to take over the game with our late third period push.”

Greenwood knew the importance of an all-out effort against the tough Canton club. “We knew we had to give everything we got,” she said. “This was our last game of the season and there’s no practice tomorrow. We put everything on the ice and everyone played their role. We’re very close and when they got a goal we realized the next one was real important and we fought back.”

At their last practice on Saturday, Canton coach Nikki Petrich stressed to her squad it had a strong formula going into the game with a sturdy veteran presence on defense and up front, and solid goaltending.

“You couldn’t write a better ending (getting to the Garden), but I guess you could,” said Petrich. “It’s why hockey is so awesome. We get to play here.”