Girls’ Hockey Surpasses Hurdles with Tight Team

Girls’ varsity hockey took to the ice this year looking to build off a strong 5-0 win over Andover at E/A last season. After graduating a strong 2013 class that included forwards Carlin Zia and Meghan Turner, and starting goalie Yuna Evans, the team struggled to put the puck in the net with consistency, and for the second year in a row narrowly missed the .500 mark, finishing with a record of 10-12-2. 

“We were at a bit of a disadvantage because we had graduated a lot of seniors and hadn't gained too many new girls,” senior co-captain Alyssa Heinze said. “However, we had a very strong core group of girls who had been here for the past few years.”

The team got off to a bumpy start, falling to St. Paul’s and narrowly tying Milton Academy. Big Red got into the win column soon after, however, shutting out the Purple Penguins 2-0. 

“We beat Cushing for the first time since I've been at Exeter,” Heinze said. “That was a pretty big deal—they always have a very strong team.”

In the long term for Exeter, the game proved that it could play together and come out on top.

“We lost a lot of good seniors last year, so there were definitely some big shoes to fill coming into this season,” upper Marley Jenkins said. “But, we got a lot of new people that clicked with the team instantly. A lot of the new girls we got this year are very dedicated to ice hockey and practiced a lot in the off season. Coming into the season, we hoped to get a good team dynamic with all of the new girls, which was something that definitely happened.”

After a tough New Years’ Tournament, at which the girls’ won one game and lost two, they returned to campus for an improved January, going 4-4-1. This stretch included an exciting 3-2 overtime win against Holderness and a 1-1 tie against Andover. 

“A game that stands out to me is the Holderness game,” Jenkins said. “The game we played before Holderness was Deerfield, which we had lost in overtime. So when the Holderness game went into overtime, we were determined not to lose in overtime twice in a row. Clara Gilbert ’15 scored the game-winning goal in overtime and our whole team rushed off the bench in celebration to cheer on the ice. It was an awesome feeling after just having lost in OT.”

Towards the end of the season, however, Big Red’s offense cooled off, and the girls managed just one goal in their final four games, which included a 0-4 loss to Andover at E/A. 

Though it did not prove to be the ideal end for Exeter, the team felt that they had played better than the bare numbers suggest. “Sometimes we just had trouble putting the puck away,” senior co-captain Alex Betrus said. “In a lot of our games, the score didn't reflect how the game was played; we would get a lot of great opportunities, but the puck just wouldn't bounce our way at times.”

Another difficulty for Big Red was the lack of depth. “We had a very small team this year, which was a challenge for us. We usually played only two lines, which could be very tiring at points,” Jenkins said. “The small team was also challenging because we had a fair amount of injuries and sicknesses on the team when we couldn't afford to lose any players.”

While Heinze acknowledged challenges in only playing with two lines, she also recognized the benefits. “We had a close knit team this year—since we had a really small team, we had a great team dynamic,” she said. “Everyone knew their role on the team and took on their specific responsibilities.”

Perhaps the most important role to fill for the team entering the year was at goalie, where Yuna Evans ‘13 left a long shadow. Lower Allegra Grant, who had joined varsity hockey as a prep the year before, proved up to the challenge.

“Our goalie, Allegra, was very solid for us this season,” Jenkins said. “She made a lot of awesome saves that kept us competitive in close games.”

Other standouts on the squad included Heinze, Gilbert and lower Kirsten Nergaard, who worked together on the first line to score the majority of Big Red’s goals. Betrus and senior Millie Dethy led the effort on the defensive end, helping Grant to acclimate to her new starting role.

On the whole, over the course of the year, Betrus did see improvement from the team. “I really thought we had good puck movement by the end of the season,” she said. “We also had some really good passing from our offense as the season progressed.”

Next year, girls’ hockey will lose six seniors, but the players are optimistic that the team can improve. “We got a lot of good recruits that were accepted to Exeter and are coming next year,” Jenkins said. “We did lose six seniors this year but hopefully the new recruits coming in will be able to fill their spots.”

“Again, they'll be losing a core group of girls, so that might be tough at first,” Heinze said. “Unlike this year, though, they'll be getting a good amount of recruits to fill in the missing gaps. Should be good!”