Area towns join forces on girls ice hockey team
By Ken Powers Community Reporter

Region - Northborough, Southborough, Marlborough and Hudson have joined forces to field a pretty competitive girls ice hockey team.

The team is considered Algonquin Regional's, since the Tomahawks fielded a girls ice hockey team for the previous five years and the uniforms carry the regional school's tradition maroon color.

Of the 14 girls on the squad, nine are from Northborough or Southborough, four are from Hudson and one is from Marlborough.

Algonquin students on the team are Chelsea Campbell, Kathleen Clark, Amanda Yee, Samantha Senecal, Carly Johnson, Nicole Barberio, Lynsay Moylan, Devin Tanzer and Erise Konstas.

Hudson students on the squad are Bekka Mongeau, Caity Murphy, Chelsea Landry, Liz Brederson and Meg Lajunesse, while Melanie Lowery is from Marlborough.

The group has combined to post a 6-11-1 mark so far this season. Last year the Tomahawks were 0-20.

"Having the team be a co-op with Hudson and Marlborough has really worked out well," coach Gina Johnston said. "We hope to get more girls from Hudson and Marlborough next year. I think we will. I think girls who were unsure about joining this year will see what we've accomplished and want to be a part of it."

Johnston said the schoolbased cliques that are sometimes created in similar situations haven't surfaced in any manner.

"Not at all," Johnston said. "I think the bottom line is these girls are competitive athletes who want to win. If you're from their school and you're helping them do that, great; if you're not, put somebody else in that will, regardless of where they go to school. It's absolutely no part of my players' thought process."

Mongeau and Campbell serve as captains, while Clark is the assistant captain.

Campbell centers the Tomahawks' first line, with sophomores Yee and Barberio on her wings. Lowery, a senior, skates on the second shift with juniors Senecal and Landry.

Yee, Johnston said, is the team's leading scorer.

Spearheading the defense is Mongeau, a senior, and Clark, a junior. They front for sophomore Murphy, who has been a mainstay between the pipes.

"Caity's played great," Johnston said. "She's technically very sound. She makes all the plays; she's very solid."

Not to mention very busy. Murphy faces an average of 40 shots per game.

Johnston has been impressed with the play of Mongeau, who was the lone female for three years on the Hudson High School team.

"Bekka's very talented; she works really hard; she sets the kind of example you want to see as a coach from a captain. She has a lot of potential, too," Johnston said. "She's going to go to UNH, which is a pretty good women's Division 1 hockey program. They also have a club team, which Bekka plans to play on. I wouldn't rule out the possibility of her, at some point in her UNH career, crossing over and becoming a member of the D1 team."

Johnston, in her second year as head coach, feels the future looks bright for her team, as she will lose just three players to graduation this year, and the core of the team includes sophomores who already contribute consistently.