BRUNSWICK — The Yarmouth/Freeport girls high school hockey team received goals from six different scorers en route to a 7-0 victory over Brunswick Saturday night at Sidney J. Watson Arena.
Sophomore Emma Moll had a pair of goals and an assist, while sophomore Lilly Weinrich and Sophia Newberg chipped in with a goal and two assists apiece in the victory.
Allie Perrotta turned away all 11 shots she faced in earning her second shutout of the season.
“Yarmouth is greatly improved from a year ago and they’re a solid team,” Brunswick coach Mike Routhier said. “We keep improving, but we’re just not getting the results.”
The visitors immediately began putting shots on net, only to be turned away by Brunswick goalie Nadia Leiner. But with 11:33 on the clock, Margaret Perrotta found the back of the net off a Weinrich helper to give the Clippers (7-3-1) the all-important first goal of the game.
“It was very important, they played a nice hard game with us the last time we met at NYA (Travis Roy Arena), so starting out early with the scoring was huge,” Margaret Perrotta said.
Yarmouth/Freeport coach Megan Vaughn also saw it as a positive thing.
“It was good,” Vaughn said. “We had a hard time on this goalie the last time we played them. So to get the puck in early was important to us to try to get that momentum started and hopefully keep it going.”
The Dragons nearly tied the score with just under six minutes remaining when Beth Labbe won a faceoff deep in her zone, but her shot on net was gloved by Allie Perrotta for the save.
The next time down the ice, Newberg almost scored for the Clippers, but her shot grabbed some iron and the score remained intact.
Leiner, who made seven saves in the frame, and the defense of Shea Sullivan, Emily Factor and Ainsley Harrower kept the Clippers off the board for the remainder of the period.
This visitors outshot the Dragons, 8-6, in the first 15 minutes.
Five minutes into the second period, Moll scored her first goal of the game to push the Clippers’ lead to a couple of goals. Less than two minutes later, Weinrich fed Newberg the puck before the junior pushed it across for a 3-0 lead.
“We faced Lewiston recently, who is really fast, and I think that helped us kick it in gear as we realize that we can be a lot faster than we have been for the first few games of the season,” Vaughn said. “We’ve been encouraging them to get aggressive with the puck.”
The score remained 3-0 until a little over midway through the final period when Weinrich picked up a rebound and slipped it past Leiner for the score, seemingly taking the wind out of the Dragons sails.
Moll tallied her second goal nine seconds later off the faceoff and Lydia Guay registered a power-play goal with under three minutes remaining. Sophomore Lizzie Guertler capped the scoring off an assist from Moll.
“It was amazing to see how many people scored tonight,” Margaret Perrotta said. “It’s awesome to see everyone having that ability so we can go forward. The team is young and to see them come up to varsity and play with confidence is great. It’s fun to see so many sophomores scoring.”
Vaughn is pleased to see the scoring being spread around.
“We played three lines tonight, which was great, and we’ve got a lot of different people that are scoring which is something we encourage,” added Vaughn.
Brunswick only managed five shots over the final two periods as the Yarmouth/Freeport defense of Kyaira Grondin, Hannah Swift and Averil Sahagian controlled the defensive zone.
“Only facing 11 shots is a real amazing thing. They kept so many shots away that could have been on goal,” Allie Perrotta said.
Routhier lauded the visitors.
“Both times we’ve played them they have defended us well. They don’t give up too much in their defensive zone,” Routhier said. “There were some rebounds there, but we couldn’t get to them.”
Brunswick (1-10-1) is slated to host Lewiston on Tuesday (5:30 p.m.) at Watson Arena, while the Clippers will look to carry their momentum when they face Gorham/Bonny Eagle/Massabesic, also on Tuesday (3:30 p.m.) at the University of Southern Maine.
“We’ve been really happy with how things have been going this year. We’re all really excited to keep this going,” added Allie Perrotta.
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