By Chris Paul
The Londonderry High School Hockey squad got off to a nice start last week with two strong wins against closely matched teams.
They started the season with a 3-2 win against the Windham High School Jaguars on the road then added a 4-2 victory versus the Salem Blue Devils at home.
In the Wednesday night season opener, at the IceCenter in Salem, the Lancers and the Jags were extremely aggressive when they hit the ice and the penalty box had quite a few visitors throughout the game to reflect that. Each team committed five penalties in the game.
The first goal of the season came from junior, Kyle McPhail about halfway through the first period on a power play with a wrist shot just outside the top of the left circle.
Windham suffered two penalties in the first and LHS had just one.
The 1-0 score remained until Londonderry took advantage of another Jaguars infraction at the end of the second period.
Senior Jack Beirne scored his first goal of the season with under a minute left in the period and in the final minute of a five-minute major. Beirne stuffed it by the WHS goalie from the right side of the crease to make the game 2-0. Londonderry made several scoring attempts during that five-minute stretch.
The third period started with another Windham penalty and a Lancer advantage, but Londonderry negated the man advantage with an infraction of their own.
After both penalties expired, with sides even, Lancer junior Drew Cameron scored what turned out to be the game winner. Cameron scored with 10-minutes left in the game, making it 3-0 with just over 10-minute to play.
The Windham squad got their first goal two-minutes later on breakaway to bring the score to 3-1. That goal started a real momentum boost for the Jags but LHS goalie senior Jake Holdsworth held his ground until another penalty by Londonderry gave the advantage to Windham.
The first WHS goal came with four minutes left in the game, one-minute into the power play.
Another Windham goal came with 35 seconds left, after LHS committed two penalties and gave WHS a two-man advantage, putting the score at 3-2.
Despite the mistakes at the end of the period, the Lancers hung on to walked away with the hard-fought victory.
In the home opener, at the Tri-Town Ice Arena in Hooksett on Saturday afternoon, the Lancers made it two in a row, beating the Blue Devils 4-2.
The team was scheduled to play Bishop Guertin for the third game of the season on Wednesday in Nashua and will play their first game against Pinkerton Academy over the break on Monday, Dec. 27, at home starting at 5:30 p.m.