As the Connecticut girls’ hockey season rapidly approaches the postseason, here’s a text I got this week from Hall/Conard coach Jared Cohane: “Throw out the seeding.” That’s how competitive the Central Connecticut Conference is right now. And while the bracket for its league tournament is mostly in stone — H/C and the East Catholic Co-op...
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As the Connecticut girls’ hockey season rapidly approaches the postseason, here’s a text I got this week from Hall/Conard coach Jared Cohane:
“Throw out the seeding.”
That’s how competitive the Central Connecticut Conference is right now. And while the bracket for its league tournament is mostly in stone — H/C and the East Catholic Co-op will be the top two seeds (in whatever order), the Avon and Suffield Co-ops will be No. 3 and No. 4 (in whatever order), and the Mercy Co-op and Simsbury will bring up the rear — given how CCC teams are cannibalizing each other right now, that order won’t matter much.
The same can be said for the state tournament. It won’t be played until after the league tournaments (which don’t count towards state seeding), and even with Darien (at No. 1), New Canaan (No. 2) and the Amity Co-op (No. 3) pretty much locked into their seeds, their path to the Final Four won’t be easy.
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Let’s dive into our final rankings before the postseason.
The only thing keeping Darien from our top spot in previous rankings was its loss to rival New Canaan before Christmas. But after the Wave got revenge in a 2-1 victory over the Rams on Feb. 7, there’s nothing holding Weicker’s team back now. Star junior Adriana Gromelski (38 points this season) and senior Izzy Haire scored the goals, and senior Lila Fiorita (30 points) provided two assists. Darien has now won 10 in a row, and only three of those victories were by less than five goals. With two regular-season games to go, the Wave are in pole position for the No. 1 seed in the state tournament.
2. New Canaan (14-1-2)
Previous rank: 1 Conference: FCIAC Coach: Rich Bulan Next: vs. Narragansett (R.I.), Feb. 18, 6 p.m.
The Rams looked invincible through their first 14 games, even if many of them were closer than expected. But Darien, as Darien does, made NC pay for a sloppy second period in that Feb. 7 showdown to hand Bulan’s team its first loss. A week later, in an evenly matched bout with No. 3 Amity, the Rams couldn’t find a way to win in overtime and settled for a tie. Those are hardly awful results — and NC got back to normal business with a 4-1 victory at the Avon Co-op on Monday — but the Rams are now all but out of the race for the No. 1 seed.
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3. Amity Co-op (11-2-2)
Previous rank: 5 Conference: SCC Coach: John Peschell Next: at Wilton Co-op, Feb. 18, 3:30 p.m.
Peschell’s team dropped from our third spot to No. 5 in our previous rankings, and two weeks later, the Spartans are right back up to No. 3. They won six in a row (with quality victories over Masuk, Daniel Hand and Hamden in there) before drawing with New Canaan on Saturday — perhaps the biggest statement a non-Darien-or-New Canaan team has made all season. Peschell’s team, only outshot 31 to 27, trailed 2-0 after two periods, but senior captain Taylor Higgins scored twice in the third. She’s got 10 goals and 6 assists on the year and is still only Amity’s third-leading scorer. Junior goalie Ivy Massicotte, who made big saves in overtime against NC, owns a .925 save percentage.
4. Hall/Conard (14-3-0)
Previous rank: 3 Conference: CCC Coach: Jared Cohane Next: vs. Avon Co-op, Feb. 18, 7:20 p.m.
Hall/Conard had won 13 in a row, the state’s longest win streak, entering a crucial league test against the Suffield Co-op on Feb. 11. Cohane’s team was off its game in a 4-1 loss, and that’ll happen in the loaded CCC — in the two games prior, Mercy and Simsbury both provided real tests as H/C escaped with a pair of 3-2 wins. Cohane’s team is second in the league standings, and fifth in the CHSGHA rankings, with two games to go — against the Avon Co-op and Darien.
Previous rank: 5 Conference: CCC Coach: Frank Usegglio Next: vs. Suffield Co-op, Feb. 18, 4 p.m.
East Catholic has a legitimate argument to be ahead of Hall/Conard here — Usegglio’s team is ahead of Cohane’s in both the CCC standings and the CHSGHA rankings, after all — but it too is suffering from a loaded league right now. East tied 2-2 with a competitive Mercy team battling for a spot in the state tournament, then lost to the Wilton Co-op (sixth in the state rankings), which is looking more and more like a legitimate postseason threat. Still, East responded with consecutive 6-0 wins over East Green (N.Y.) and the Masuk Co-op — Deidre McKiernan scored twice more on Monday to move ahead of her older sister, Mary, on the program’s all-time goals list (with 80).
In the hunt: Wilton Co-op (10-4-1), Suffield Co-op (12-6-0), Avon Co-op (9-7-1), Masuk Co-op (9-7-2)
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2. New Canaan (14-1-2)
