HYANNIS – When a hockey goalie is struggling or feeling the pressure of all eyes upon them, or more aptly stated, all pucks hurled like bullets at their feet, it can be excruciating to watch and heart-rending to empathize with him or her. But when a hockey goalie stands strong, confident and unfazed by a maelstrom of opposing shots, it can seem like a poetic dance of will upon will.
No single Cape Cod goaltender stood with more stoicism this season or had more of an uplifting impact on her team’s success than Falmouth High’s Madison Scavotto. In short, she was the one player whose name came immediately to the tongue of each of our consultants even though, in reality, the proof was already in the pudding.
Madison Scavotto – Falmouth High School
2014-15 Capecod.com Player of the Year.
Sean Walsh/Capecod.com Sports file photo
In four seasons as the starting goalie for Falmouth, Scavotto’s leather has led the Clippers to three Division 2 State Championship title games. In four postseasons and with 14 MIAA tournament games under her goaltending belt, Scavotto has posted a 1.5 goals against average and an 11-3 record. She has made as many as 30 saves in a postseason game three times, has garnered a pair of Boston Globe All-Scholastic Awards, four SEMGHL Coastal Division All-Star selections and even won a U19 Tier II National Championship title in the offseason last summer.
Committed to play for St. Anselm’s College next fall, all of the fanfare and all of the accolades could not hold a candle to precisely what she had to do this season to enable her team to go to the very end and to get to the apex of the team’s mission.
All totaled, Scavotto notched six shutouts in her goalie stick this season and finished the regular season with a 1.22 goals against average, helped her team defeat some of the state’s very best with nearly 500 total saves and in general everywhere she went, served as the team’s sort of de facto ambassador on and off the ice. A captain, a leader among young women and perhaps one of the most shining examples of what any coach could hope for between the pipes, Madison “Maddie” Scavotto was hands down this year’s first-ever Capecod.com All-Cape & Islands Player of the Year.
Capecod.com 2015 All-Cape & Islands Coach of the Year: Erin Hunt, Falmouth
It’s usually a no-brainer in these types of things to just roll with the coach who has won the most games. That’s not why Falmouth High’s fourth-year head coach Erin Hunt was selected as the first-ever Capecod.com All-Cape & Islands Coach of the Year, nor did her unblemished and weighty resume factor into the decision.
Erin Hunt, Falmouth High School
2014-15 Capecod.com Coach of the Year
Sean Walsh/Capecod.com Sports
What made Coach Hunt stand out from her talented and successful peers was a combination of her sheer humility, her steely nerve under pressure, her ability to not only get her team to perform, but more importantly, to get her girls to “believe.”
It also helped considerably that this year’s Falmouth High girls’ ice hockey team, at 19-4-2, earned a third trip in four seasons to the MIAA Division 2 Girls’ Ice Hockey State Championship game, set for this Sunday at the TD Garden against Wellesley.
But the true turning point in what made her stand apart came on Friday, February 13 at the Falmouth Ice Arena.
Having lost to top-ranked, undefeated Barnstable High earlier in the season, Hunt’s Clipper girls knew it was all laid out on the table for them when the rival Red Raiders ventured to Falmouth with the SEMGHL Coastal Division title on the line. Buoyed by huge wins over Canton (4-2) and Duxbury (6-1) just days earlier, Hunt used that momentum to help convince her girls that the unbeaten Red Raiders could be beaten. She instilled in her Clipper icewomen not necessarily a sense of self-confidence, but more so she kindled a flame that was already there. The 2-0 shutout over Barnstable landed a devastating blow to the Red Raiders’ “dream season,” and snatched from beneath the archrivals’ very feet a league title that was all but wrapped up.
It was a pivotal point in Falmouth’s run toward a return trip to the hallowed TD Garden, but it did not make the still quite young coach rest on her laurels. She used that one victory to help propel her girls to their ultimate season’s goal and she masterminded the journey quite well.
With a four-year career record of 64-14-9 and on the heels of a brilliant run through the sectionals to get to this Sunday’s state title game, most importantly, Coach Hunt has consistently deflected and downplayed most individual successes while routinely deferring to her “team’s” success. In the process, and in many people’s eyes, she more than earned the title of 2015 Capecod.com All-Cape & Islands Coach of the Year.
Capecod.com 2015 All-Cape & Islands, First Team
Goalie – Madison Scavotto, Falmouth High, Senior
Forward – McKenzie Haberl, Falmouth High, Freshman
Forward – Lindsey Phelan, Barnstable High, Senior
Forward – Nicole Martin, Sandwich High, Senior
Forward – Aubrey Ashmun, Martha’s Vineyard, Senior
Center – Madison Haberl, Falmouth High School, Senior
Forward – Kelly Ferreira, Falmouth High School, Senior
Defenseman – Morgan Richard, Barnstable High School, Senior
Capecod.com 2015 All-Cape & Islands, Second Team
Goalie – Olivia Sollows, Barnstable High School, Freshman
Forward – Callie Rogorzenski, Barnstable High School, Junior
Forward – Katie Donohue, Dennis-Yarmouth, Senior
Forward – Margaret MacDonald, Falmouth High School, Senior
Forward – Katie Lowry, Sandwich High School, Senior
Forward – Sydney Davies, Martha’s Vineyard, Senior
Forward – Meghan Moore, Barnstable High, Sophomore
Forward – Marissa Fitzgerald, Bourne/Mashpee/Wareham, Freshman
Forward – Sam Shastany, Dennis-Yarmouth, Senior
Forward — Ericka Meissner, Falmouth High School, Sophomore
Forward – Shannon Upton, Falmouth High School, Sophomore
Defenseman – Blue Fancy, Nauset/Cape Tech, Freshman
Defenseman – Caroline Spalt, Barnstable, Junior
Defenseman – Brooke Bowman, Falmouth High School, Sophomore
— The Capecod.com All-Cape & Islands girls’ ice hockey team was compiled by Capecod.com sports editor Sean Walsh in consultation with high school coaches, game officials, and others, in conjunction with statistics, team success and a variety of other factors. To contact Sean Walsh email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @coachwalshccbm
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