1st-year varsity team playing like veterans

MEDFIELD -- After offering a club team for the past few years, Medfield High School upgraded girls' hockey to a varsity sport this season, and the team is off to a strong start.

In their first game, the Warriors took 1-0 and 2-1 leads over Westwood High School before succumbing, 3-2, to the Wolverines Dec. 11 at the Canton Ice Arena.

Since then, Medfield has rebounded nicely, beating North Quincy High School, St. Bernard of Fitchburg, Norwood High School, and Archbishop Williams of Braintree . In a Boston holiday tournament, they lost the opener to Boston Latin and beat St. Bernard's in the second game, improving their record to 5-2.

Athletic director Jon Kirby needed plenty of help to make the program a reality. His first move was to hire a good coach. He picked Mark Huggins, who had served as an assistant coach for Bob MacCurtain at Woburn High School.

"Working at Woburn, I took a lot of things for granted," said Huggins. "Here, we basically started the program from scratch. You have to give a lot of folks credit. It took a lot of hard work and sacrifice."

The School Committee approved the program in the spring, but the school's budget had been established a year earlier, so it took some creative financing to make the program a reality.

All athletes at Medfield High School pay a user fee. For those who play boys' or girls' hockey, it is $175 for the season.

Kirby said those fees aren't enough to fund the program, which pays, among other things, for players' transportation to games and practices. Kirby noted that youth hockey programs charge fees of between $600 and $1,000 a season.

Kirby said the program got crucial financial help from parents, in the form of a girls' hockey booster club. The club agreed to contribute money for ice time and game officials for the first four seasons.

They are funding 100 percent of those costs this season, 75 percent next year, 50 percent the next year, and 25 percent the final year, Kirby said.

Medfield High School will assume all funding beginning 2010-'11.

The team got additional help from an unexpected source. The Direct Federal Credit Union purchased home and away uniforms for each player.

"They have this wonderful young women's leadership program that financially helps athletic programs for girls in the Tri-Valley and Bay State Leagues," said Kirby.

Since Medfield and Westwood are the only two Tri-Valley League schools that have girls' hockey teams, Medfield is playing an independent schedule against teams from various leagues.

"It wasn't easy putting together an independent schedule," said Kirby. "But we were able to find teams to play."

Besides the aforementioned opponents, Medfield has Winchester, Boston Latin, Algonquin Regional (Northborough-Southborough), Braintree, Walpole, and Mount St. Joseph High School on its schedule. Medfield hopes to join a league next year.

"I've had discussions with [Duxbury High School athletic director] Thom Holdgate and he believes we can join the South Shore League next season," said Kirby.

Ironically, the best hockey player in Medfield is not on the team. "Sarah Small didn't go out for the team," said Kirby. "She would have liked to play for the hockey team, but she was elected as a captain of the girls' basketball team and she felt a responsibility to play for the team."

Girls' basketball coach Mark Nickerson "was very good about it," Kirby said. "He told Sarah it was her choice to make and she could play hockey if she wanted. But she decided to stay with the basketball team."

"I like to think we have the best players in town on the team," said Huggins. "These are a special group of young women. They took the initiative to get this program going and their work ethic hasn't slackened a bit."

Leading the team are four cocaptains -- goalie Andrea Cronin, Emily O'Shaughnessy, Nicole Poli , and Kasey Finn.

Jillian Hoban will go down as the first goal scorer in Medfield High girls' hockey history. With assists from Finn, she scored both goals in the 3-2 loss to Westwood.

"The girls did a fine job and they are only going to get better," said Huggins. "Although we have strong senior leadership, we have a young team and we're building for the future."

What is impressive is their determination, especially when you realize their practice schedule begins at 5:30 a.m. weekdays at the Iorio Rink in Walpole.

"Ice time is so precious; you have to take what you can get. Our players have done a fantastic job at being ready to go to work at that hour," said Huggins. "You have to give them credit. They are motivated to improve."