The girls’ hockey season kicked off Friday night as BFA-St. Albans hosted Essex, Beekmantown, N.Y. and Massena, N.Y. for the Christi Corrigan Blitz Tournament.
The first game of the night had Essex and Beekmantown facing off against each other with BFA-St. Albans matching up with Massena.
Both games were played tight through the first period, but in the end the night belonged to both of the teams from New York.
In the first game, Essex battled to a 1-1 tie after the first period, but couldn’t capitalize on any of its four power plays and Beekmantown scored three unanswered goals to come away with a 4-1 victory.
In game 2, the Comets played to a 0-0 tie after the first period before Massena scored four unanswered goals to end the game to finish with a 4-0 victory.
In the first game, Beekmantown got things going early with a goal 21 seconds into first period. The Hornets responded with a nice wrist shot by Kaitlyn Butkus to notch things at 1-1.
From there, it was all Beekmantown as it got goals from Abby Bone, Ireland Preston and Bailey Carter with goalie Taylor Laurin playing well between the pipes with 16 saves.
BFA and Massena played tight throughout the first period with both teams coming away with six shots on net, but no goals.
That all changed when Massena went on a powerplay early in the second period and Magaret Wilmshurt received a nice backdoor pass and redirected it into the net to make it a 1-0 game.
Less than a minute later, Massena got its second goal when KC Herne picked up a loose puck and was wide open in the slot for a wristshot that made it a 2-0 game.
Mikenna Merry made it 3-0 when she picked off a pass in the neutral zone and carried it in uncontested and took a shot that slipped just under the crossbar and in. Herne scored her second goal of the game in the third period.
Massena’s Krysten Stone made 18 saves to preserve the shutout.
BFA’s Gabbi Metz came away with 20 saves in the game with not much of a chance to come away with a save on many of the goals. She also made some nice saves in the third period when she stopped nine of 10 shots.
Day 2 of the tournament will be played Saturday with Essex going against Massena at 11:30 a.m. and puck drop for BFA vs. Beekmantown at 1:30 p.m.
Northwest Vermont Sports 