RallyNorth.net

Meeting turns around season

Wednesday, February, 20 By Phil Stacey
Sports editor

There was a time this season when Masconomet, the defending Cape Ann League champions, were struggling to score goals and, at 4-4, were looking like the playoffs were more fiction than fact.

Then captain A.J. Rothwell and his two assistants, Andrew Roach and Tommy Brazil, approached head coach Bill Blackwell | and that one meeting has seemingly changed everything for the Chieftains.

"They came to me with a chip on their shoulders," admitted Blackwell, whose team won six of its next seven games to qualify for the playoffs and finished the regular season 13-7. "I think they were tired of hearing 'You guys won last year because you had (since-transferred scoring star Chris) Kreider and those guys', and wanted to prove that wasn't the case this winter.

"Our captains | everyone that returned this winter, really | were a big part of what we did last season. So the captains took it upon themselves to step it up even more this year. Ever since that talk, things have been going great."