Rio Kauffman ’20 makes a save in the championship game.
(January 14-16, 2017) Buoyed by outstanding goaltending, Northwood School’s 16U team went 5-0 in the Northwood Invitational Hockey Tournament and won the championship of the 16U Division.
“We had one objective heading into the Northwood Invitational: win the whole thing,” said head coach Trevor Gilligan. “With that said, we knew that it was going to be a process throughout the weekend and we couldn’t look ahead. Half by half we chipped away at our ultimate goal.”
In game one on Saturday the Huskies took on the Mercer Chiefs and beat them 4-2. Rio Kauffman (2019) recorded the win in net.
Game two on Saturday Northwood faced off against CMI from Quebec. CMI carried the pace early on and Verneri Virtanen (2019) was forced to make some key saves, but the Huskies settled in and took the game over ultimately winning 5-0.
Game three was against the Middlesex Islanders. A win would earn the Huskies the first seed and the right to play in the semi-finals the next morning. A back-and-forth first half resulted in a 2-1 Northwood lead.. A strong second half, with some great work on the penalty kill, and another solid outing for Kauffman, earned the Huskies a 5-2 victory.
Sunday morning was a rematch against CMI. A consistent Husky effort led to a 3-0 win and another shutout for Virtanen. The win put the Huskies in the finals against Kuper Academy.
In the championship game, a slow start and a few miscues led to an early Kuper goal, but Northwood regained momentum getting two late first half goals from Will Arquiett (Forward, 2019) and Weston Batt (Forward, 2019). Northwood continued to pressure in the second jumping out to a 4-1 lead with goals from Batt and Jared Lambright (Defense, 2019), but Kuper dug in and narrowed the lead to one late in the second half. A defensive stand and an empty net goal from Arquiett gave Northwood the 5-3 win, and the Northwood U16 Invitational trophy. Rio Kauffman earned the win in net. “It was a great weekend all around,” said Gilligan, and “a giant step in the right direction for the stretch run.”
