Huskies Fight Through Sickness To Defeat Kents Hill

The New Hampton Huskies have been plagued by the flu the past couple days. They will be missing a few players, as they travel down to Gorham, ME today, for a neutral site game against Kents Hill School, at the University of Southern Maine. One could tell that the players were battling sickness as they game started. The Huskies did not seem to have their normal energy from the moment the puck dropped and Kents Hill took the play to New Hampton. Four minutes into the period, Kents Hills early control of the game lead to them taking the early lead. After the Kents Hill goal, the game saw more back and forth action for the next ten minutes. With two minutes left in the period, Bradley Shaw rushed the puck down the ice, slid the puck to Lynden Breen at the top of the circles, who one-touched the puck to Michael Kesselring. Kesselring one-timed the touch pass top corner, tying the game at one. New Hampton started the second period off sloppy and their careless play lead to Kents Hill taking back the lead six minutes into the period. Five minutes later, on the power play, Michael Kesselring ripped a shot from the point, that found a way to trickle past the Kents Hill goaltender. Kesselring’s second goal of the game, brought New Hampton even again with Kents Hill. Three minutes later, Lynden Breen won an offensive zone face-off back to Adam Shuchart. Shuchart put a nice hard low shot toward the net that Bradley Shaw was able to deflect between the Kents Hill goaltender’s legs to give the Huskies their first lead of the game. Although, not playing their best hockey, New Hampton had a one goal lead heading into the third and final period. Things look like they were not going to start off well again for the Huskies, as New Hampton took a penalty in the first minute of the period. However, on the penalty kill, Lukas Uhler caused a turnover in the New Hampton zone, gather the puck and feed Alec Grace for a breakaway. On the breakaway, Grace put a shot over the pad and under of the glove of the Kents Hill goaltender, putting the Huskies up by two. Six minutes later, Bradley Shaw passed to Joe Dunlap on the rush. Dunlap fired a shot on net that the Kents Hill goaltender stopped, but the rebound came out and deflected off of Lynden Breen into the net, giving New Hampton a three-goal lead with just over nine minutes remaining. Right of the ensuing face-off, the Huskies took a penalty. Kents Hill took advantage thirty seconds later on the power play, cutting New Hampton’s lead to two. With just over four minutes remaining in the game, the Huskies took another penalty that allowed Kents Hill to make it a one goal game. New Hampton managed to hold off Kents Hill in the final four minutes to earn the victory. Matt Sayles was good in net, stopping 31 of the 35 shots he faced. The Huskies will hope to get healthy in the next couple days as they take on Vermont Academy in an important game for Lakes Region Playoff position on Wednesday, February 14^th.