Before the Exeter girls hockey team embarked on its Large School championship run, coach Sally Komarek wanted her players to reflect on their individual seasons and pinpoint how they would help the team on its path to that ultimate goal.
“We did a team activity where everyone vocalized what their role was going to be in the playoffs and how they were going to be great at that, and we put that up in the locker room,” she said. “It’s a little bit cheesy, but I think everybody bought in and executed their roles really well.”
Komarek had a team of “highly competitive, eager people” on her bench throughout the season and wanted them to continue showing off that style in pressure-packed playoff situations in early March.
It happened.
With soon-to-be-Vermont-bound senior Maria Gray and juniors Paisley Meyer (Greenland, N.H.) and Erin Sears (Cornwall, Vt.) — who have already committed to Yale and Northeastern, respectively — forming the top line in their third straight season playing together, Komarek knew the team would have strength in those three. They didn’t have to change much down the stretch.
“Absolutely not,” Komarek laughed. “They know what they need to do.”
And that was to put up lots and lots of points.
The trio of top-liners did that when the games mattered the most and led top-seeded Exeter to its first New England crown since 2000, winning the Large School division. Meyer scored two goals in the 3-1 title game win against Choate, while Gray totaled six points on the way to Patsy Odden Tournament MVP honors.
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“I kind of felt like we were almost role models to everyone else on the team,” Meyer said of the line, which combined for 63 goals and 147 points on the season. “(That responsibility) really helped me because I wanted to show up for the rest of my teammates. A lot of the points came from us, so when we were down, I felt like we had to work harder to push everyone else.”
The road back to the top at Exeter took time. It was a steady build that Gray and classmates Emma Shu (Westwood, Mass.) and Lainey Fortney have been a part of for four years.
The current seniors have helped Exeter to a tournament appearance in three straight seasons since a narrow miss as first-years. Before Komarek arrived in 2019, Exeter had gone a decade without experiencing playoff hockey at all.
This group felt different right from the start, and wins over the likes of perennial power Cushing that they hadn’t beaten in the past proved it.
“I thought our team last year could have made a playoff run, so losing in the first round was super hard,” Gray said. “We returned basically everyone except for (goaltender Allie Bell), but then we gained Eva Mai Whyte (Natick, Mass., from BB&N). So, even at the start of the season, we knew we had a team that could win it all.”
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Komarek felt the same way, pointing to the team’s incredible work ethic and a group of hockey-first athletes — including four college commits among the senior class — as two key reasons for success. A season ago, the team’s two senior captains were both preparing for Division 1 lacrosse careers.
“I feel like this was just a strong and hard-working group, and we truly had a group of hockey players,” Komarek said. “When you have a bunch of kids that really are about trying to be the best they can be, it’s special. Sometimes that’s about winning, but it’s usually bigger. It’s about getting better every day. That (type of effort) sets the tone and raises the bar.”
While there is little need for motivation come playoff time, Gray knew that the time to get it done for Exeter had to be now.
The Big Red checked in at the top of the bracket even after a three-game losing streak in February, but faced some immediate adversity in the tournament by having to battle back from a 3-0 deficit with less than 10 minutes left in regulation against Middlesex in the quarterfinal.
Despite dominating the game to the tune of a 58-17 shot advantage, Exeter had to come back. UConn-committed senior Grace Riley scored the game-tying goal with 47 seconds left to force overtime, and Meyer tallied her second of the game in overtime to advance the Big Red.
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“We easily could have given up when it was 3-0, but I think everyone cared for each other so much and it mattered so much,” Gray said. “We didn’t want it to be our last game together.”
In that moment, maybe there was just a little motivation needed. That was it for Meyer.
“It was just like, ‘How did we want their last game to be remembered? How do they want to remember their Exeter careers?” she said. “It was a lot about playing for the seniors.”
After breathing a little easier through a 5-1 semifinal win over BB&N, the final was another comeback effort. Choate scored a shorthanded goal in the first period before Gray and Meyer scored back-to-back goals to build a lead that Exeter wouldn’t relinquish despite facing a late penalty kill.
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After the buzzer sounded and a championship celebration ensued, the realization that this was the final game soon hit.
Gray is graduating, which means the killer top line will be no more. The future is still bright with returning players like Meyer and Sears.
“It makes me really excited just to keep building,” Komarek. “We have some awesome kids that have been admitted, some that have accepted. That’s something that’s really important to us, having kids in the locker room who make the experience better and challenge each other on the ice. We just can’t wait to see what is next for us. This was an incredible season, but we’re aspiring for more. We still want to get better and have that Elite 8 push.”
