On Wednesday, January 2^nd, Kent girls varsity hockey faced off against Canterbury. Even before the game began the team’s warm up drills were looking good and the team was strongly focused on the task at hand. As the team prepared, Coach Rousseau had a look of pride on his face, mixed with some worry about how the game would turn out. When asked what the team did to prepare for the game, Coach Rousseau said that the week’s practices had “been focused on trying to move the puck more in an effort to use each other to create confusion for our opponents’ defense.”

The first period was off to a rocky start with Kent on the defensive after losing the starting face off. Five minutes into the period Jesse DeVito ’18 shot off the first attempt on Canterbury’s goal. With 11:45 on the clock Alyson Baldwin ’16 blocked an attempt to score and six seconds later blocked another Canterbury attempt, keeping the two teams tied up. With the clock quickly counting down, Kent battled for the puck in the neutral zone. With two minutes left until the end of the first period, Haley Uliasz ’19 scored the first goal of the afternoon.

Although the starting face off for the second period was won by Canterbury, Kent quickly had an attempt on goal at 9:59 by Jessye Ebzery ’17. Halfway through the period Keely Moy ’17 scored, giving Kent a two point lead over Canterbury’s zero. At the five-minute mark, Melanie Anderson ’18 scored, bringing Kent’s lead up to three. With the flick of her wrist Moy scored again at 3:23. Kent briefly lost the puck, an error that  Canterbury tried to take advantage of, but they failed to when Baldwin once again had a great save at three minutes until the end of the period. However, just when the period seemed over, Anderson scored again at 49.5 seconds. At the end of the second period, the score was 5 – 0.

At 14:47 DeVito started off the third period with another goal. With an obvious shift in focus from offense to defense, Carly Denora ’18 saved a number attempts on Kent’s goal. Captain MacKenzie Ebel ’16 thought that the team played well, but that the game was won mainly by “focusing a lot on getting pucks to the net and capitalizing on our chances.”

In regards to the game, Coach Rousseau made it clear that the key was “maintaining the disciplined, defensive effort that yielded our sixth shut-out win of the season.” The final score was 6 – 0.