Huskies Shutout Millbrook To Advance To The Semi-Finals

New Hampton finished with a 18-13-3 (Overall: 19-13-3) record against NEPSAC teams, earning them the #4 seed in the Small School Tournament. With the #4 seed, the Huskies drew the #5 seed, Millbrook School. Due to the distance between New Hampton School and Millbrook School being over two hours and forty-five minutes, New Hampton was not able to host. Thus, the Huskies will play Millbrook this afternoon at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA. New Hampton looked as if they still had bus legs to start the game. Millbrook took the play to the Huskies in the first period, creating several scoring chances early on. If it were not for the strong play of Matt Sayles in net, New Hampton could have been down a couple goals early. The Huskies were able to battle through the bus legs and escaped the first period tied at zero. A much different and refreshed looking Husky team came out to start the second period, immediately taking control of the game. New Hampton’s early pressure on Millbrook led to a power play for the Huskies. On the power play, Lynden Breen received the puck just outside the Millbrook blue line. Breen skated into the Millbrook end and passed across to Lukas Uhler at the top of the circles. Uhler one-timed Breen’s pass through the legs of the Millbrook goaltender to give the Huskies a 1-0 lead, three and a half minutes into the period. Three minutes later, New Hampton’s continued pressure on Millbrook resulted in another power play for the Huskies. On the power play, Uhler scored again, to increase New Hampton’s lead to two. Uhler’s goal was set up by a point shot from Michael Ardagna, that Michael Kane battled for the rebound and then slid to Uhler. After receiving Kane’s pass, Uhler ripped a shot past a sprawling Millbrook goaltender. In the final eleven minutes of the period, the Huskies played solid defense, killing off multiple penalties to keep their two-goal lead heading into the second intermission. Both New Hampton and Millbrook came out hard to start the third period, each knowing that the next goal would be a game changer. The Huskies continued to clamp down defensively and Millbrook was not given much offensively during the first eleven minutes of the period. Just past the eleven-minute mark, New Hampton was able to score that all important next goal off and offensive zone faceoff. Lukas Uhler pushed the puck through the Millbrook centerman’s legs, Michael Kane beat the Millbrook defenseman off the wall, picked up the puck and ripped at shot on net that the Millbrook goalie initially stopped. The rebound came right back to Kane and Kane ripped another shot far side that beat the Millbrook goaltender to put the Huskies up by three, with seven minutes remaining. In the final seven minutes, New Hampton continued their strong defensive play, not giving Millbrook anything offensively and skated to a 3-0 victory. Matt Sayles was great in net, stopping all 29 of the shots he faced. With the victory, New Hampton will take on the #1 seed, Winchendon School, this Saturday, March 3^rd, with a chance to play in the Small School Championship at stake.