Girls hockey draws to a conclusion

The Dedham and Milton high girls hockey teams each went into Saturday night’s game with the hope of clinching a share of the Bay State Conference Herget Division championship.

But after a 0-0 tie the Marauders and Wildcats had their title destinies fall out of their grasp and were forced to wait for Wednesday’s league finale between Norwood and Walpole to learn their fate. 

“A tie is a tie. These are two teams playing for the championship and it turned into a great defensive battle, and the way this season is going I guess we had to expect it,” Dedham girls co-coach Don Parr after the draw with Milton. “Now it’s coming down to the last game of the season and the Bay State schedule of Norwood versus Walpole is going to determine who the champ is.”

Dedham got the help it needed when Kelsey Cosby’s goal with 1.6 seconds left lifted the Rebels to a 2-1 win, granting the Marauders a four-way share of the crown with Walpole, Milton and Wellesley as the quartet all finish tied atop the Herget with 21 points. It’s Dedham first league title since 2005.

As the saying goes, defense wins championships, and one thing both teams took from the contest is that their defense is strong. Scoring, though, was a struggle.

“We played our hearts out,” Parr said. “Milton is a great defensive team. Their strength is in the defense and they protected the net pretty well and we knew that, but we shut them down too.”

Dedham outshot the Wildcats, 22-15. But the quality of the shots limited their scoring opportunities, thanks to both teams’ defensive abilities.

“Defensively the goaltending has just been our highlight and we have four strong senior defensemen,” Milton coach Maggie Radley said.

The Marauders spent the majority of the first period keeping Milton out of their defensive zone and when the Wildcats entered the zone, Dedham’s defense kept them to the outside, limiting shots from critical scoring areas in front of the net

“We went at them. We didn’t want to let them get any shots off and I think we did a pretty good job for the most part protecting our goal so they didn’t get a lot of shots,” Parr said. “We outshot them, that was our goal to shut them down.”

Milton came back hard, though, in the second period and had numerous chances in the first few minutes, but Dedham’s netminder, senior Sarah Mosca, did well at keeping the puck out of the net, albeit with some rebounds that Dedham’s defense cleared away.

In the third period both teams picked up the pace of play, their offensive chances and their defensive strengths.

“I thought in the third period we did a pretty good job,” Parr said. “We would have liked to see our power play a little bit stronger but you know you have two teams battling for everything – it’s playoff hockey. “

Dedham went 0-for-3 on the power play as they struggled to set up a successful passing system in the offensive zone. Milton junior goaltender Emma Drew made key saves in the final moments of the game when Dedham went 2-on-0 into the zone.

“For us it was a nice turning point,” Radley said. “The girls are playing a lot better, more cohesive and we were looking to this to jump start us going into the playoffs. We knew that Dedham would be tough – the league itself is just a levelheaded league and you don’t know who is going to come out on top. Dedham played awesome and we played awesome. We got shots on net and good goaltending and, we, well, got another tie.”

With its Herget title hopes out of it hands, Dedham went about the task of improving its seed in the Division 2 tournament Monday against crosstown rival Ursuline. The Marauders did just that, but not without a tough battle from the Bears as it took a Tara Celata goal in third period to lift Dedham to a 2-1 win.

Meagan Dwan erased deficits of 1-0 and 2-1 with goals before Celata made and end-to-end rush and roofed the game-winner early in the third period. Mosca made some big stops throughout to help keep Ursuline at bay. 

“They were shooting from all over,” said Parr of Ursuline. “They were aggressive and certainly weren’t playing like a team that wasn’t going to tournament.”

Dwan also had two goals in a 4-1 win over Natick last Thursday, with Sarah O’Hanlon adding a goal and an assist. Dedham, 10-3-6 overall and 8-3-5 in the BSC, wraps up the regular season Thursday against Medway/Ashland.