Tenth-seeded Harwood hosted ninth-seeded Rutland at the Ice Center of Washington West on January 17, 2023, in what would be a barn burner game in the third period, ending with Rutland holding the lead with a 4-3 win.
Rutland started off strong in the first, notching two goals past freshman first time goaltender Paige Pratt, Pratt would go on to have 23 saves in the game. At the end of the second period, scoring two more off power plays, Rutland had four over Highlanders' zero.
In the third, it would be eighth grader Briden Merrill who would get on the board first for Harwood, assisted by linemate freshman Alex Isham and senior Kate Wilkesman. Immediately following, another linemate, junior Maggie Belknap would score from the post position, assisted by Wilkesman and Isham. The line pairing not done yet, scored another goal minutes later with another goal by Merrill, assisted by Isham.
Harwood had another close call opportunity with a shot into the fray in front of the net, with the ref losing sight of the puck and blowing the whistle before Highlanders could tie up the game. Harwood tallied a total of 29 shots on net.
"We really came back in the third period, I wish that we could have put another one in the net but the time ran out," said coach Katie Martin for the Highlanders. "We had a lot of great opportunities, and we really utilized our points tonight. Overall, the girls played great and worked together, seeing them get excited about coming back in the third was awesome. We are excited to hopefully have our bench back to full capacity next time we play this team for the last game of the season."
"We were really lucky that Pratt stepped up tonight to help us out, she is usually a strong force for our offense, but at the last minute we needed to switch things up and she came up big for us tonight. Zoe Duffy on defense had a great game, as well as Isham up front as a playmaker."
The awareness game for the Harwood boys’ is January 24 at the ice rink for breast cancer, my apologies, I wrote in the last one that it was the 20.
