Martlets Fall to Mass Conn Elite

The Martlets hosted a talented Mass Conn team for a Friday evening game. Westminster played well, generating many scoring opportunities, but ultimately were unable to solve the riddle of the Mass Conn goaltender – who had 35 saves while leading his team to the victory. Mass Conn struck first, scoring back-to-back shorthanded goals against the Black & Gold – never an auspicious start – and putting the home side in a 0-2 deficit only 5 minutes into the game. On both goals against, the Martlet power play had good possession in the Mass Conn end, but turnovers with too many men deep led to quick transitions and odd-man breaks against Westminster netminder Alex Martinez ‘26. Martinez played well overall, posting 23 saves of his own, but was left exposed by his teammates on these two occasions. The Martlets got the score back to 1-2 later in the first period when Jake Timone ‘25 won a faceoff in the Mass Conn end and found linemate Jack Adams ‘23 in front of the net. Adams fired the puck on net, collected his own rebound, and banged the puck home. Adams’s goal energized the Martlets, and from that point forward the coaches felt the Black and Gold had the balance of the play through the end of the game. Led by the always stalwart play of defensemen Jack Rockefeller ‘23, Corbin Simons ‘25, Jack Carter ‘23, Stuart Dorman ‘23, and Evin Curtiss ‘24, the home side did a much better job of covering their own end and moving the puck up the ice. The second period began where the first left off, and the Martlets succeeded in getting pucks and bodies to the net only to meet with frustration given the steady play of the Mass Conn goalie. A bit of extracurriculars stemming from one such scrum in front of the Mass Conn net led to 4-on-4 play for almost 2 minutes, and towards the end of that stretch Adams struck again, this time taking a perfect pass from Rockefeller from the near hashmarks and calmly redirecting the puck in. Timone also assisted on that play, winning the preceding faceoff cleanly to Rockefeller. The game remained knotted at 2-2 deep into the third period, with the Martlets outshooting the visitors by a wide margin but without a positive result. As so often happens in this game, a Mass Conn dump into the Black and Gold end led to a turnover, and a Mass Conn forward threw the puck at the net on his backhand through traffic – and it slipped by Martinez to put Westminster down 2-3 with six minutes to play. The Martlets hung tough, however, and continued to play hard in front of the Mass Conn keeper. With 2 minutes to play, Martinez was pulled in favor of another attacker, and Westminster succeeded in generating several good scoring chances. After one such flurry, a loose puck after a shot was taken by a Mass Conn player who fired it up the ice for what seemed to be another icing during these last final minutes. But the puck clipped a Westminster defensemen in center ice and tumbled into the Martlet net for an empty-netter. The Martlets got right back to work for the last minute or so, but to no avail. And so the game ended in defeat, 2-4. But the coaches were happy with the overall effort and play, and certainly the Mass Conn keeper was a difference maker tonight. The team won’t have much time to rest up and refuel: the JVs are on the road at Kent tomorrow for a 4:30 puck drop. Many thanks to the Rockefeller family for providing the post-game pizza – a head start on the team’s preparation for the Lions.