Nauset-Monomoy Girls Hockey Determined To Reach New Heights

ORLEANS – When Zach Wells took over the Nauset-Monomoy girls hockey program in 2021, he inherited a large group of underclassmen who were eager to make their stamp on the program.

 Three years later, Wells and the Warriors are counting on the maturation and development of those once-underclassmen turned veteran leaders to pave the way for a special season. 

 “We started three years ago with 10 eighth-graders, and now we have 12 upperclassmen,” Wells said. “These girls are in a rhythm now and they turned into a great group of role models and their attitude is ‘we want to win.’”

 Although the team lost just three seniors from last year’s 19-3-1 squad to graduation, each of them were key pieces of the fabric of the program, which has blossomed into one of the best among the Cape and Islands under Wells’s leadership. 

 Replacing star goaltender Olivia Avellar and defensemen Sienna Reeves and Isabella Roberts will be a tall task for the Warriors, though Wells feels especially confident in what his team is returning and the increased numbers the program saw during tryouts.

 “This year we’ll have a full team,” the coach said. “It will be 12 [forwards] and eight [defensemen] and we had three goalies try out, so we’ll have a full squad for the first time in four years.”

 The increased turnout had an immediate effect that was apparent during the team’s first practices.

“When you have four lines, we can buzz around the ice and actually do drills that require more people,” Wells said. “We’ve been kind of limited the last couple years with numbers and you can’t do certain things that you want to work on, so it’s been helpful already.”

All of the team’s forwards returned from last year’s squad that reached the Division 2 state quarterfinals before suffering a 2-1 season-ending loss to Algonquin, including last year’s leading point scorers, Monomoy junior Gaby Bassett and Nauset senior Carly Brand. 

“They are basically a two-headed monster,” Wells said of the pair. “We have the ability now to have three full lines, especially with those two on separate lines. They can kind of come at you with speed and shooting and scoring ability, and they were developing even this fall and [with] their club teams.”

Nauset senior Sophia Boucher returns as a captain alongside Bassett and Brand and will be counted on to lead the scoring efforts alongside Nauset juniors Julia Kipperman and Emily Decker and Monomoy junior Morgan Willis.

Nauset junior Lillian Peck will anchor the blue line as a four-year returning player, with Nauset junior Callie Murphy and sophomore Violet Yingling both back on the blueline after gaining valuable experience as underclassmen. 

Although the defensemen will look to serve as the first team’s first line of defense in front of its goaltenders, Nauset junior Norah Swanson and sophomore Ava O’Connell, Wells is very optimistic about what the netminders can bring to the team now that they are being thrust into larger roles following Avellar’s departure.

“It’s a pretty even competition right now,” Wells said. “They both played club this fall and they’ve been doing really well. It seems like on the Cape and Islands this year there’s not many goalies that are around still, so I think we’re in a good position, which is kind of crazy to say after losing Olivia, who was the best goalie in the state.”

With so many returning contributors, Wells and the Warriors are setting their sights on building off last year’s success for another deep postseason run. 

 “It’s always just trying to do better than the last year,” Wells said when asked about the team’s goals. “If we can find ourselves in a situation where we’re one game away from going to the Garden, that’s ideal. We’re just trying to build every year, just trying to move further and further.”