This season, the Medford Mustangs, Malden and Medford joint team, has played a pretty good season. Although their current record is 2-6-1, it seems to be going better than past seasons, with captain Terrell Pesaturo stating that “To compare this to [their] other seasons, [they] did not have this many wins at the start or middle of the season,” with their record last season being 4-15-1. The team also still has a chance of making states this season, with Pesaturo mentioning that “[they] need to make every game count.”
With this season going better than usual, there are bound to be a few strengths that have led to the team winning. Captain Pesaturo mentioned how “[She] thinks [their] strengths this season has been [their] ability to outskate a fast team or shoot those corner pick shots,” with Pesaturo also mentioning how “the game against Beverly showed [their] strengths completely,” with the team coming out on top with a score of 8-3.
Pesaturo also mentioned how “the defense on the team has definitely been stronger this year from everyone on the team. The backchecking has definitely improved from everyone playing.”
The team also seems to have a few weaknesses though this season that could be worked on. Captain Pesaturo mentioned how “one thing [their] team could work on is breaking the puck out of [their] zone better and keeping it in the offensive zone longer.” One game that Pesaturo felt showed these weaknesses was against Bishop Fenwick, which resulted in a defeat for the Mustangs.
Captain Pesaturo commented that “[they] have had a lot of difficult games and every team [they] face gives [them] a run for [their] money. [Their] biggest rival is Winthrop and those games are always fun and a good game to watch.”
Since the season is already halfway over, goals have started to be reached as well as new goals emerging. Pesaturo mentioned how “one of [her] goals was to play the best [she] could each game” and also mentioned how “one game [she is] proud of [her] effort and skill was the Peabody game [that they] unfortunately lost, but [she] had [her] best game yet.” As a goal for the rest of the season, Pesaturo said that “one goal [she] would like to set is to beat [their] 4-15-1 record and get more wins.”
With the team being a joint team between Medford and Malden, it could cause some issues with the relationship on the team. However, it seems to be going well, with captain Pesaturo stating that “most of [them] have been playing together for years because Malden does not have a youth girls hockey team” and that “[their] relationship as two schools are gone when [they] are together, [they] see each other as one team rather than two schools.”
Being that there are still eleven games left in the season, the team seems to be pretty excited for the games to come and see how the rest of the season goes. Captain Pesaturo mentioned how “[She is] looking forward to [her] last few games of my high school career. [She is] super excited to play them and [she is] sad knowing that this experience is coming to an end.”
