Tewksbury stays hot on the ice
Improve to 11-2 in drubbing of Billerica
The red-hot Tewksbury Memorial High School boys hockey team rolled past Billerica, 7-1, in a MVC/DCL crossover game played at the Breakaway Ice Center on Monday night.
Tewksbury improved to 11-2 overall and have now won six games in a row.
“We’re getting better every single day,” said Tewksbury head coach Derek Doherty. “All three lines are playing our systems and we just have to outwork the other team in order to win. Since (our last loss against) Boston Latin game, we changed things up and it’s been working. We are flying right now.”
The game was scoreless after first, before the Redmen scored three goals in the second period and four more in the third to break it wide open. The first line of Jason Cooke (3 goals, 1 assist), Will O’keefe (1 goal, 4 assists) and Campbell Pierce (1 goal, 1 assist) combined for 5 goals and 6 assists.
Tom Barbati and Cole Stone each had a goal and an assist, and Caden Connors had one assist. Goalie Patrick Letourneau made 11 saves for the win.
Billerica head coach Jim Eagen said it’s pretty easy to figure out why his team struggled in this one.
“A lot of individualization going on out there,” he said. “It’s a lot of individual play. Tewksbury is a good skating team and all three lines skated as units and all of their guys played 200 feet. We didn’t play a 200 foot game. We weren’t getting pucks deep and
we weren’t getting back into our zone. Their guys would go 200 feet and out backchecker would go 120
feet. You can’t win hockey games that way.
“We also became a little bit undisciplined and went to the penalty box a few too many times and they scored three powerplay goals. You can’t win hockey games that way.”
Billerica (5-4- 0) goalie Connor Feeney saw 42 shots before coming out in the third period. He didn’t get much help in this one.
“We haven’t been able to put it all together just yet,” said Eagen. “We know we have the components in that locker room. We have great goaltending, a great defensive core who has battled injuries all season and we are almost back healthy. Our forward lines have to figure out how to play as a unit as we’re not doing that right now.”