TYNGSBOROUGH – One look at the Division I high school girls hockey standings will reveal that there’s no one team above and beyond the others.
Bishop Guertin and Hanover helped prove that on Monday.
The Cardinals had leads of 2-0 and 3-1 in the first period, along with a 4-3 lead early in the third, but the Marauders battled back to earn a 4-4 tie in a game at Skate 3. Both teams sit at 5-2-1 on the season, two of six teams that have at least five wins at the halfway point.
“We played well and we just kept fighting,” BG coach Myia Yates said “We kept coming at them but they kept coming at us. It was a great game, great back-and-forth.
“That’s what is so great about our league right now. Everyone is so competitive and anyone can beat anyone on any given day.”
Except for this particular regular-season game, even though the Cardinals received two goals and two assists from Meghan Turner and 31 saves from goalie Christiana Carlini. Taylor Hadley added a goal and an assist while Mikaila Petrillo chipped in with a goal and Emily Doran had an assist.
Hanover was led by Tessa Hill, who had a goal and a helper, while Madison Dewhirst, Courtney Mayers and Madison Hill also scored.
Madison Hill’s goal with 6:24 left in the third period sent the game into overtime after Turner scored on a breakaway early in the period to give BG a 4-3 lead.
Tuner helped get the Cardinals on the board first while the Marauders were on the power play. The sophomore streaked down the left side of the ice with the puck and drew the defense toward her before flipping it to Hadley on the right side of the net for the shorthanded tally.
BG went up 2-0 when Petrillo gathered a long rebound near the blue line and sent the puck past Hanover goalie Emily Eickhoff, but the Marauders answered less than a minute later when Dewhirst scored on a rush.
The Cardinals went back up by two when Turner picked the puck out of a scrum in front of the net and knocked it past Eickhoff. But Hanover rallied again, getting goals from Mayers and Tessa Hill, who scored with 30 seconds left in the period, to tie the game at 3.
“It was good being up two, but we can’t let down,” Yates said. “I think we let up a little bit in our defensive zone coverage. We were giving them a little too much room to attack.”
That’s where it stood through the second period. BG was shorthanded for nearly five minutes in the period, including a 5-on-3 for Hanover that lasted 1:17.
But the Cardinals held on each penalty kill, holding the Marauders without a shot during the two-man advantage.
“We played hard and we played with heart, especially in that second period where we were down 5-on-3,” Yates said. “We were able to kill that and Hanover didn’t capitalize on it.”
Turner put BG back on top with 11:33 left in the third period with a breakaway goal. After forcing a turnover at center ice, she skated in alone and when Eickhoff committed down low, Turner tossed the puck over her right shoulder for a 4-3 lead.
Hanover got another 5-on-3 with 6:25 to play and this time capitalized. Madison Hill beat Carlini to her glove side to tie the game, but the BG goalie came up big from there. Carlini made another big save during the remaining power play and came up with a few more toward the end of overtime to preserve the tie.
“She played real strong,” Yates said of Carlini. “In the second and third period, she really picked us up and kept us in the game.”
The Cardinals return to the ice on Sunday against Souhegan at the Cyclones Arena in Hudson.