Hanover girls hockey blanks Raiders

Hanover forward Katharine Moseley (6) is congratulated by her teammate Casey Willkinson (21) after scoring a goal during a girls varsity hockey game against Lebanon-Stevens-Kearsarge at Campion Rink in West Lebanon, N.H., on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. Hanover won, 4-0. (Valley News - Alex Driehaus)

Hanover forward Katharine Moseley (6) is congratulated by her teammate Casey Willkinson (21) after scoring a goal during a girls varsity hockey game against Lebanon-Stevens-Kearsarge at Campion Rink in West Lebanon, N.H., on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. Hanover won, 4-0. (Valley News - Alex Driehaus) Valley News photographs — Alex Driehaus

Lebanon-Stevens-Kearsarge goaltender Andy Lindquist makes a save during a girls varsity hockey game against Hanover at Campion Rink in West Lebanon, N.H., on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. Hanover won, 4-0. (Valley News - Alex Driehaus)

Lebanon-Stevens-Kearsarge goaltender Andy Lindquist makes a save during a girls varsity hockey game against Hanover at Campion Rink in West Lebanon, N.H., on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. Hanover won, 4-0. (Valley News - Alex Driehaus) Alex Driehaus

From left, members of the Hanover boys hockey team junior Ryan Carroll, 17, junior Ronan Przydzielski, 16, senior Tyler Gammell, 17, and senior John Scherer, 18, cheer for their classmates during a girls varsity hockey game between Hanover and Lebanon-Stevens-Kearsarge at Campion Rink in West Lebanon, N.H., on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. Hanover won, 4-0. (Valley News - Alex Driehaus)

From left, members of the Hanover boys hockey team junior Ryan Carroll, 17, junior Ronan Przydzielski, 16, senior Tyler Gammell, 17, and senior John Scherer, 18, cheer for their classmates during a girls varsity hockey game between Hanover and Lebanon-Stevens-Kearsarge at Campion Rink in West Lebanon, N.H., on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. Hanover won, 4-0. (Valley News - Alex Driehaus) Alex Driehaus

Hanover forward Pauline Rudd (2) and Lebanon-Stevens-Kearsarge defender Julia McGee (5) fight for the puck during a girls varsity hockey game at Campion Rink in West Lebanon, N.H., on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. Hanover won, 4-0. (Valley News - Alex Driehaus)

Hanover forward Pauline Rudd (2) and Lebanon-Stevens-Kearsarge defender Julia McGee (5) fight for the puck during a girls varsity hockey game at Campion Rink in West Lebanon, N.H., on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. Hanover won, 4-0. (Valley News - Alex Driehaus) Valley News — Alex Driehaus

By TRIS WYKES

For the Valley News

Published: 01-29-2025 3:58 PM

WEST LEBANON — Campion Rink bragging rights remained with the Hanover High girls hockey team on Tuesday after the Bears pinned a 4-0 defeat on Lebanon-Stevens-Kearsarge in the rivals’ shared facility.

The Raiders, whose 12-player lineup doesn’t include anyone from the latter two schools this season, trailed by a goal after one period and by two after the second stanza. They wore down against a superior foe with a deeper and healthier bench. The Bears have a 17-player roster.

“I was impressed by Lebanon; I thought they played their hearts out with their small numbers,” said 20th-year Hanover coach John Dodds, whose “visiting” squad improved to 7-3-0 overall and 5-0-0 in NHIAA play. “We had some girls who were moving pretty well tonight.”

Hanover sophomore Casey Wilkinson had a goal and three assists, freshman Pauline Rudd had two goals and senior Nora Bradley added two assists. Lebanon netminder Andy Lindquist was credited with 30 saves.

“Their goalie played well, but we also made her look good,” Dodds said. “We hit her in the stomach about 15 times. Coaches are never happy and always think you should score more.”

Hanover opened the scoring midway through the first period and doubled its lead early in the second stanza, both off scrambles near the crease. Freshman Katharine Moseley had the first tally and Wilkinson the second.

Rudd scored the last two goals, one of them on a laser wrist shot from the right circle after a rush across the blue line.

Hanover pressured Lebanon-Stevens-Kearsarge throughout the evening, forcing the Raiders to relinquish the puck via turnovers, icing or layoffs into open space. The Raiders don’t have the depth to play fire-wagon hockey or even to work combination passes on most rushes and were knocked out of sync by their neighbors.

Article continues after...

Yesterday's Most Read Articles

“We had some good speed on the forecheck and took away time and space,” Dodds said. “That was one of our goals before the game, to be relentless on the puck and make (LSK) work, make them skate (the length of the rink) with the puck.”

Lebanon-Stevens-Kearsarge had a five-game winning streak snapped and fell to 5-2-0.

“Our team always battles, but we’ve had a week where we’ve lost momentum with injuries and sickness,” said first-year LSK coach Dan McGee, who dealt with forward Mackenzie Ray and defenseman Julia McGee being limited by illness. “We had a couple of games (postponed), and now we’ve had only six or seven skaters at practice recently.

“We gutted it out but we didn’t have everybody 100%, that’s for sure.”

Hanover was a bit shorthanded itself Tuesday, playing without forward Julia Lawe and defenseman Abby Lindsay, both sick. The Bears hope to have a full roster next week when they’ll be challenged during visits to Adirondack United in Glens Falls, N.Y., and Oyster River-Portsmouth.

Adirondack, which Dodds said is the best team Hanover’s faced the past several years, is a seven-school co-op that beat the Bears, 4-0, earlier this season. Oyster River-Portsmouth absorbed a 4-1 loss at Campion last week but was also last season’s NHIAA runner-up. Six of Hanover’s next eight games are on the road.

“It will be good to see if we’ve improved,” said Dodds, whose team’s other loss occurred in upstate New York to Beekmantown High.

While defending NHIAA champion Hanover seems to reload rather than ever rebuild, Lebanon-Stevens-Kearsarge rarely has more than a skeleton crew. The past two winters were solid in terms of Raider numbers, but this winter they’re back to skating three defensemen and relying on players who’ve only recently begun the sport.

Biff Maher, who starred as a freshman LSK defenseman last winter, transferred to the Holderness School. Five players graduated last spring and a couple others moved away. Kearsarge student and promising goaltender Kristen Garzia was lost to a hip injury and Pipper Hamilton, a freshman and the current backup backstop, skated at forward Tuesday for the first time in three years.

In all, 12 players on last season’s Raiders roster aren’t on this year’s team, and there are only a handful of identified prospects currently in middle school.

“Thank goodness our newer players came out, because we wouldn’t have fielded a team if they hadn’t,” said McGee, a onetime Lebanon hockey standout who later served as a boys assistant coach. “But when you’re playing basketball, you’re not thinking about running. When you’re playing hockey and you’re learning to skate … it’s a totally different challenge mentally and physically.”

<sbull value="sbull"><text xmlns="urn:schemas-teradp-com:gn4tera"></text></sbull>

Notes: All players wore neck guards, as required nationwide starting this season. Vermont has long done so, but New Hampshire has not. … A corporate donor was thanked via the public-address system for buying the Raiders a video camera and software system that costs more than $5,000. Hanover also has one, paid for by a Bears parent. … With no Kearsarge or Stevens players on the current LSK team and few on the horizon, it seems possible Lebanon will co-op with Mascoma next winter. That would allow the Royals’ Montana Ballard, who currently plays on the Lebanon-Stevens-Mascoma boys team, to join the girls squad if she so chooses. Ballard is the younger sister of LSM standout Mason Ballard.

Tris Wykes can be reached at ctwykes@aol.com.