Lebanon
Lebanon-Stevens improved to 4-3 as the Bulldogs, playing in their inaugural season, fell to 3-8.
The Raiders waited all of 28 seconds to start building their insurmountable lead against Bedford. Kayleigh Trietsch fired a shot straight on from just outside the crease and when it was deflected, but not secured by Bulldog goalie Hanna Paradis, Tibbits was there to net the follow-up.
Adrienne Maccioli doubled the lead nearly two minutes later on a long shot from slightly inside the blue line, assisted by Celia Barnett.
Maccioli, one of two Stevens High players on the roster along with her cousin, freshman Makayla Maccioli, is a goalie that has had to skate out at times as a defensemen this season in order to help fill voids left by injured players.
“We had three girls hurt in three games a couple weeks ago,” Raiders coach Brad Shaw said. “We have one out with a broken wrist, one out with a bad sprain and we had another one with a concussion that is fortunately back now.”
Lebanon-Stevens cooled off after its initial barrage, not lighting the lamp again until 5:37 elapsed in the second period when Makayla Maccioli scored off a faceoff close to the goal. Tibbits added another goal, unassisted, at 7:16 and first-year Lily Barber made it 5-0 with less than four minutes remaining off an assist from Makayla Maccioli.
The younger Maccioli made a nice feed from the right side of the net to the left where Barber was waiting for a one-timer.
Freshmen Lena Nowell and Tibbits iced the victory cake with third-period goals; the latter was assisted by Makayla Maccioli.
Tibbits’ hat trick was her first of this season.
“I’ve scored like two goals, I’ve been so close to scoring a hat trick,” Tibbits said. “I just feel really good about myself.”
Tibbits, one of five seniors on Lebanon-Stevens, seems to like what she’s seen out of the newcomers thus far.
“Our freshmen are really strong this season,” she said. “I’m really proud of them, they work really well together, they worked together in past seasons. So it’s really good to see them come out as high schoolers and pass the puck. They are some of the stronger passers on our team.”
Shaw echoed Tibbits’ sentiments.
“They’ve been skating together for quite awhile and typically they can carry the play,” Shaw said. “They’ve been playing really good against some of our better teams. … We don’t have a first, second line, they’re the freshmen line. We’ve got two seniors and a junior on the other line. Both lines are actually quite equivalent, but for freshmen they do a really good job.”
Shaw acknowledged that it is hard to get up for a team that doesn’t quite match up skill-wise.
“We were pretty flat tonight,” he said. “We weren’t really excited about how they were playing. Obviously we’ll take the win, but this wasn’t our best night.”
Notes: Senior captain Halle Drew played between the pipes on Thursday, registering a 16-save shutout. Although it was a long night for Paradis, she still managed to save 26 pucks for the Bulldogs. … A few jerseys changed hands prior to Thursday’s matchup: Needing to ditch her goalie jersey in order to skate out, Adrieanna Maccioli dawned the injured Kaitlyn Veracka’s jersey. Sophomore defensemen Mackayla O’Meara was clad in the No. 17 jersey, which was passed on to her by Julie Barber, a Raiders senior captain who was paralyzed after surgery to address cancer prior to last season. O’Meara kicked off Thursday’s game by singing the National Anthem. … The Raiders return to action Wednesday versus Concord.