Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/68638
2012 NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS | ASSABET VALLEY STRESSED ACADEMICS. ... HOCKEY'S JUST A TOOL "MY DAD'S ALWAYS TO OPEN DOORS." — ERIC GRAY 12 & UNDER Since 2004, the Assabet Valley 16 & Under team, right, has won five USA Hockey National Championship titles. During the same span, the 14 & Under team has also won five titles and added two runner-up finishes. The 12 & Under team has won 11 titles since 1988 and appeared in 13 of the past 15 championship games. ambitious young women. After playing at some of New England's top prep schools, a good number will go on to Division I programs, some to advancing to U.S. National Teams. In fact, among the 19Us this past season, Sydney Daniels, Brianna Laing, Briana Mastel and Natasha Rachlin – each Harvard-bound in 2013 – played for the U.S. National Under-18 Team. "I definitely owe a lot to Assabet Valley," says Daniels, who makes a 90-minute commute Massachusetts to Concord for the program's only weekly from Western 16 practice. "Every Sunday, you learn something new, you're always skating, you're always thinking. It's a great place to be to develop your skills." Daniels led Assabet in scor- ing with four goals and two assists during its U19 title run, which included a thrilling, 2-1, overtime win over Shattuck St. Mary's in a Saturday semifinal. "I think Shattuck brings out the best in our kids," Laing says of the Fairbault, Minn., prep school that owns five 19U titles. had chances to win it. We had chances to win it. It was JUNE/JULY.2012 USAHOCKEYMAGAZINE.COM "It was up and down. They intense for me, too. I'm on the bench, my stomach's turning. [At that serious hockey being played, and there are some serious hockey players." Laing's 19Us took the title Sunday with a 3-2, come- from-behind win over the Chicago Mission. Later in the day, Laing added another championship to his collection (he's coached more than 10 title-winners) when his 16Us, featuring daughter Alexandria, beat the Buffalo Bison, 3-2. "Last year we made it to the level,] there's some final and ended up losing," says 16U forward Makenzie Kent, who scored the game- winner. "Going to tourna- ments, we're all competing for a championship. It's never, hope we make it to the quar- terfinals. We play to win. And I like that about it." I Kent, the third of six chil- dren in an athletic family, transferred to the Assabet pro- gram a few years ago. "It's thing that's happened to me in hockey," she says. "At Assabet, you're surrounded by every- one who wants to get better." Kent, who talked about how definitely the best many of her Assabet friends are doing their schoolwork at PHOTOS BY John Carey