A win for the wrong zebras

A Groton team slightly hampered by injury and illness took the ice as the visitors against a full Middlesex bench. There were chunks of the game in which we were the better team, with good opportunities, good passing, and time in the offensive zone. We could not, however, match the skill of a couple Middlesex players, one of whom, on two occasions, got the puck behind her own net and proceeded to skate around or through our entire team before earning a clean look at the goal, deking, and putting a backhand top-shelf. She scored other ways, too. Middlesex scored first, about halfway through the first. On the ensuing face-off, Lilly won the draw, skated around their D, and scored a nice goal of her own, Elapsed time: 11 seconds since Middlesex went up. Middlesex got 2 more goals a bit more than a minute apart to go up 3-1, but we were determined not to let the game get away. 16 seconds after they went up 3-1, Gracie worked some magic and fed Lilly for another goal. We tied the game at 3 apiece 3 minutes into the second period, with Gracie this time using Lilly as a decoy and shooting and scoring herself. Unfortunately, that was the last one we could sneak into their goal, despite having many second and third chances and several pucks behind their goalie but batted out of the crease before they went in. Middlesex's superstar players showed their skills as they played much of the third period, building their way to the final score by capitalizing on their few-but-high-quality scoring chances.