By Dakota Antelman, Contributing Writer
Westborough – Westborough boys hockey head coach Chet Hallice joked that he was running out of pucks after his team’s 4-2 win over Auburn Jan. 8.
Indeed, three of Hallice’s players netted their first career goals in the victory. With each new score, his players collected the puck from the back of the net and gave it to their teammate as a memento to their milestone.
“It’s well deserved and well earned,” he said. “I couldn’t be happier for all of them.”
The scoring started less than four minutes into the game when Westborough’s Nick Choate flung a shot past Auburn goalie Tyler Mackaul for his first career goal.
A defense heavy, physical style of play consumed most of the period after that. Still, however, the Rockets managed to tie the game with mere minutes left on the clock with a goal from Nic Spanos.
The second period followed an almost identical storyline to that of the first. Jackson Bohn gave Westborough back the lead with his milestone score early on before Auburn crawled back with a late goal of their own.
This time, though, the Rangers responded quickly with senior captain Cam Pelkey scoring his first career goal in the final minute of the second period.
As the team celebrated all the night’s first-career-goals, it was Pelkey’s, Hallice said, that felt the most triumphant. Pelkey did, after all, reach the milestone after spending four years on the Rangers squad and rising to the rank of captain all without a goal.
“The team was so excited for him on the bench, in the locker room,” Hallice said.
The Rangers tacked on one more goal in the third period. Auburn could not answer, allowing Westborough to snap a five game losing streak that had dogged them through the holiday season.
Now moving onward with their 2019-2020 schedule, Hallice said he is happy to have logged this win and especially proud of his three players headed home with game pucks to remind them of it.
“It’s at the time in the season where we needed a win like this,” he said. “We haven’t been playing bad. But we just haven’t got the breaks, we haven’t got the goal scoring. We got all that today, though. This is a total team effort today.”
