RallyNorth.net

Looking for the silver lining

Thursday, January, 17 By Matt Williams
Staff writer

As tough as it might be to fathom when looking at the 11-1 final score, there was a silver lining in Peabody's loss to Marblehead last weekend. During one of the most difficult stretches of their season, the Tanners have chosen not to focus on final scores but instead on getting as many players as much ice time as possible.

"The only way the girls will learn is to get out there and play," said Tanners coach Larry Minehan. "Besides, it's like (assistant coach) Vinny (Patermo) says, if we lose, what's the difference if we lose by one or by 100?"

With barely two lines of experienced skaters, many of the 1-8 Tanners are novices and some are skating for the first time this winter. Getting them on the ice is paramount to both their improvement as well as growing the program and that's the approach Minehan has decided to take.

One experienced player who is coming on of late is Paige Sansaverino, an Essex-Aggie student playing with Peabody's co-op program. She scored her first goal late in the Marblehead game and if she can emerge as a second scoring option to Colby Amor | who leads the North Shore with 12 tallies | the Tanners will be in much better shape down the stretch.