Kingston, MA – In a matchup of the 5 seed versus the 12 seed the Duxbury Dragons played on home ice tonight at The Bog, taking on the Dartmouth Indians. Both teams entered with one tournament win under their belt, but only one would move on to the Round of 8 in the D2 bracket.
In the first period it was a lot of back and forth action for both teams, driven by their respective transition game. There were a selection of big hits by Duxbury, namely by forward Connor O’Connell who did most of his damage along the boards but he saved his biggest one for center ice, which fired up the student section. Duxbury would earn a power play in the opening 15 but they were denied repeatedly by sophomore Dartmouth goalie Ashton Machado who looked like he was on his game early here. Aside from being the team’s best penalty killer, he made a number of additional clutch saves including a big one with 10 seconds left in the period. We would wrap up the first with no score.
In the second period is where Duxbury began to break the seal on this game. They first capitalized on a power play with a score by junior defenseman Brendan Bonner, which came only seconds after a shorthanded breakaway chance was turned away by junior goalie Sam Mazanec on a nice rush by senior Dartmouth speedster JC Frates. The Dragons would double the lead later in the period on a faceoff play where senior forward Dan Bird walked off the wall and fired a rocket from just behind the center, the puck may have had a vapor trail behind it. At that point, Dartmouth began to push back and got one of their own as junior forward Jamie Charrier crashed the crease on a delayed penalty and buried a rebound to cut the lead in half. Things began to get chippy after that and a five-minute major was assessed to Dartmouth for a huge hit that started a fracas that involved everyone on the ice. But that was all for the scoring in the middle frame, onto the third we went.
In the final period, Dartmouth looked to put the pressure on and had Duxbury on the run defensively but O’Connell was able to scoop up the puck for the Dragons, take it in and bury it on the breakaway: 3-1 Duxbury. Just seconds later came a dagger as Bird popped up on the scoresheet again with his second on the night to make it 4-1. Dartmouth was able to seize control after that but Duxbury did tack on one more on a shot that the goalie wasn’t expecting by senior forward Tyler Walser: 5-1 would be your final from The Bog.
Duxbury now advances to play Masconomet at Chelmsford Arena on Friday at 5:10pm.
Three Stars:
- F Dan Bird, Duxbury
- F Connor O’Connell, Duxbury
- D Brendan Bonner, Duxbury
