On May 23rd, Yavneh Academy Girls Hockey team traveled to the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy to play in their much anticipated playoff game. After missing the playoffs last year a victory over the undefeated Kushner team is all they would need to advance to the championship game.

The Kushner Girls started the game with a relentless attack, that forced Yavneh Academy to use a lot of energy in their defensive zone, and did not allow for many offensive opportunities. Goalie, Shoshana Klein, made save after save, keeping her team in the game (on her birthday no less!). The first period ended with a 0-0 tie.

At the start of the second period, Kushner continued to apply the pressure and it proved to be too much for Klein and the Yavneh squad to withstand. Kushner scored 3 goals in a short amount of time to make it 3-0. While it was difficult to take these series of blows for the Yavneh team, they would not give up!

The third period was back and forth. Yavneh put itself into an offensive minded mode and decided to focuse their energy on offense. Halfway through the third period, Yavneh called a timeout to put in 5 players and pulled their goalie. Their coach knew that just as quickly as Kushner scored their 3 goals in the second, Yavneh could do the same. Captain Abigail Rochlin lead the charge and in two minutes, Yavneh came back into the game by scoring not just one, but two quick goals. Unfortunately,  Kushner was able to score an empty net goal to make the score 4-2.

Even though the comeback fell a bit short the last minute gave the team and fans the opportunity to acknowledge Captain Abigail Rochlin, Alternate Captain Chantal Polinsky and Dalia Mermelstein, all of whom are departing 8th graders and will be missed by their 6th and 7th grade teammates next year!

by Coach Aliza Hiller