PEMBROKE — As a freshman, Caroline Batchelder has plenty more varsity games left to play. At least one more this winter and then three more full seasons worth.
But she might never have a bigger night.
Or score a bigger goal.
Batchelder completed a hat trick with 1:21 left in the second eight-minute overtime period Monday night to lift the 13th-seeded Archbishop Williams High girls hockey team to a 3-2 upset win over No. 4 Pembroke in the Round of 16 of the Division 2 state tournament.
“It was an all-team effort, every single goal,” said Batchelder, who lives in Braintree. “I couldn’t have done it without them. Every play leads up to every goal.”
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With the teams skating 3-on-3 for the second OT, Batchelder took an offensive-zone faceoff in the left-wing circle. The puck skidded into the corner, where teammate Shea Nolan, a freshman from Quincy, battled standout Pembroke eighth-grade defenseman Mary Quatrale for the puck all the way behind the Titans net.
Batchelder drifted to the right post, fished the loose puck onto her forehand and stuffed it inside the post, triggering a wild celebration.
“I didn’t even see it go in,” Batchelder said. “I heard everybody (cheering) and then I felt everybody on me, and it felt great.”
In the quarterfinals (date, site, time TBA) Williams (14-5-3) will face either No. 21 Barnstable (11-8) or No. 5 Natick (13-6-2). Those teams square off on Wednesday.
Maybe by that time the Bishops will have caught their breath.
“Little tiring,” Batchelder said with a laugh. “I think that’s the longest game I’ve ever played in, yeah.”
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“That was awesome,” said Archies first-year coach Doug Nolan, a Quincy native who played pro hockey, mostly in the U.S. minor leagues and in Europe. “So many emotions in that game. Kids are crying on the bench. You can’t breathe. It was back and forth. Our goalie (eighth-grader Evelyn Lacey of Braintree) played unbelievable; she made some huge saves. We just got a nice little lucky bounce at the end of the game.
“That’s one of those games that you don’t want either team to lose because they both played their butts off.”
No one had to tell Pembroke how cruel a playoff overtime loss can be. The Titans (16-6) saw their 10-game winning streak snapped in agonizing fashion.
“We didn’t get the result we wanted,” coach Bill Flynn said, “but there was no quit. We left it all out there.”
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Pembroke fell behind 2-0 as Batchelder struck twice in the first period, but the hosts stabilized the game after that and eventually knotted it up on third-period goals from Quatrale (8:07 left) and Jen Birolini (3:27 remaining). The Titans had several golden chances in both extra periods — the first one was played 4-on-4 — but Lacey twice stopped Birolini (team-high 26 goals) on breakaways and denied Megan Dorsey on another to keep the score level.
“I give Archbishop Williams a lot of credit; they came to play,” Flynn said. “They worked hard, they were resilient. They were beating us at our own game at the beginning; they were all over us on the forecheck and they really kept us down. We couldn’t do anything. I give them credit; they’re a good hockey team.
“But I’m proud of how we had a little bit better second period and then we really came out in the third period and got a couple of goals. In the overtime we had our chances. The puck just wouldn’t go in the net for us. Kind of full circle — early in the year the puck wouldn’t go in the net for us. That overtime was (the same thing). The goaltender for Archbishop Williams really did a phenomenal job.”
Pembroke will graduate five seniors — goaltenders Kaleigh Murphy (who was strong in this one) and Alison Stone, forwards Dorsey (14 goals, 22 assists, 36 points) and Erin Doran (6-6–12), and defenseman Allison Zeoli (1-3–4).
“The leadership on this team is second to none,” Flynn said. “The five of them together really brought this team together. We started out 2-4 and we just stuck with it. Those seniors stuck with it and the younger players responded to them. They worked hard for them. We haven’t had a group of leaders like that. Their work ethic leaked down to the younger kids. They really did a fantastic job, all five of them.”
The cupboard is hardly empty for Pembroke, though. Since ending their co-op with Whitman-Hanson beginning with the 2014-15 season, Titans are 111-43-14 as a solo act and should continue to thrive with young standouts such as Quatrale (17 goals), Birolini, and eighth-graders Hannah D’Angelo (6-7–13) and Lauren Perry (5-9–14).
“Yeah, the future is bright,” Flynn said. “We’ve got some freshmen and sophomores who are really going to start to contribute next year.”
Williams’ roster also skews young — four seniors, six juniors, no sophomores (go figure), four freshmen, five eighth-graders and three seventh-graders.
“It’s a (grade) seven-through-12 school,” Batchelder remarked. “Everybody has an equal chance to play varsity. If you’ve got the skill, you play.”
Batchelder has been playing varsity for two years, and no one on Archies’ bench seemed surprised that the moment was not too big for her.
“She can score goals,” Nolan said. “She plays with some swag. She’s a confident kid. She can shoot the puck. She’s got great hands. Tough kid. Fun to be around.”
“She brings energy,” said senior Karaline O’Toole, of Quincy, who skates on a line with her younger sister Kate, an eighth-grader, and Batchelder. “She calls for the puck when she’s open. She knows where to shoot the puck when we need it. She’s there when we need her.”
Batchelder was definitely there when the Bishops needed her on Monday, and now they get to play again. Pembroke had won 14 of 15 coming in, but Williams is red-hot, too, going 8-1-2 since snapping out of a three-game losing streak at midseason.
“We had a little three-game slump in the middle of the season,” Batchelder said. “We came out (of the gate) with a 6-2 record, then we got into that little slump and then we came back flying and here we are.”
The Bishops need three more wins for a state crown. Whether or not they get it, this season has been a huge improvement on the last two, when Williams went a combined 12-25-4. The Bishops’ Round-of-32 win over Weymouth was the program’s first postseason victory since the 2017-18 team made it to the state semifinals.
“Very physically draining and really emotional,” Karaline O’Toole said of Monday’s instant-classic victory. “I’ve been working for this since I was a freshman, so it’s really memorable.”
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