Hilltoppers Win, Eventually.......

Finally, a nice sunny actual spring day!!  The Hilltoppers put their as yet undefeated record on the line against the Dragons of Greens Farms, a squad that has been working hard but that is not particularly experienced.  Today, though, they gave Hopkins all they could handle in a hard-fought contest that wasn’t decided until the fourth period.  GFA opened the scoring but Hopkins answered to lead 4-2 at the end on one.  Junior attacker Stephen Mettler had a hat trick in the period and would end up with an amazing 11(!) for the day, one off of Andy Maretz’s school record, set in 1982.  A sort of ordinary second period had the hosts up 10-6 at the intermission but not feeling particularly satisfied with their efforts.  GFA then outplayed the hosts to the tune of 5-3 in the third and actually tied the score at 11.  In the fourth, though, sophomore Mitchell Delfini dominated at the face-off X and had 4 assists and LSM Miles Lourenco gobbled up the the ground balls so the Hilltoppers played a fair bit of “make it, take it” after fast break goals by Mettler.  Jake Moscarelli scored one (of his 4 for the day), captain Mitchell Patton went coast-to-coast to get for one himself with the long pole, and the period was won convincingly 7-2 by Hopkins.  Ultimately, seven Hilltoppers found the net this day so the scoring was actually spread out a bit.  For their efforts in bailing out the squad, Delfini and Lourenco earned game balls.  Next up is the greatest of all Hopkins rivals, the Tiger of Suffield.