On Tuesday, the WHS girls varsity ice hockey team opened their season with a tough 0-3 loss against Trinity Hall, at Warinanco.
After a scoreless first period, Westfield opened the second period man-down on a penalty kill. Within the first minutes of the second period, Trinity Hall slipped one past freshmangoalie Emi Radlmann.
Momentum on power plays ultimately was the deciding factor, with two of their three goals being scored when they were man-up. Sophomore defender Parker Broad said, “Working on things that didn’t go well in the game will help us for the future, especially working on playing when we are down a player. Two of their goals were scored on a power play, so figuring out how to mark when we have one less on the ice will help us.”
Despite the unfortunate result, Westfield displayed pockets of promising offensive momentum. Seniors Ella and Lauren Delaney both produced solid attacks that were denied by Trinity Hall’s goalkeeper. Another main contributor to the offensive moments Westfield found was senior co-captain Serena Sherman. Being that it is so early on in the season, Sherman sees many areas to improve for the Blue Devils, one being “breaking the puck out of our zone” coupled with “making more passes in general.”
In a late effort to close the 0-2 gap, Westfield pulled Radlmann from the net to get another offensive player on the ice. At first, they saw a slight offensive sway in their favor, which was quickly thwarted by a counterattack from the other side. After breaking the Westfield defensive line, the Trinity Hall attacker simply passed the puck into the open net to close the game out 0-3.
The trio of Sherman and Ella and Lauren Delaney were the three top goal scorers in the 2024-25 season. They look to continue to bring offensive success to the team. Sherman said, “We got a lot of shots off, but their goalie was very skilled. We’d like to see more of those go in, and that is something we can work on.”
Assistant coach Darren Finkel praised their young goalie for a strong opening performance to her young career. He said, “Emi Radlmann, our goalie, had a really solid game. We are excited to have her as a freshman.” Finkel followed this up by expressing his optimism for the season ahead: “I think that there’s a lot of promise to this squad, and so we have high hopes for a successful season.”
