BUZZARDS BAY ­­­­– For the first time since 2015, the Falmouth girl’s hockey team is heading to the Div. 2 state championship after knocking down Marshfield 2-0.

It wasn’t an easy one for the No. 2 Clippers as it needed an empty net goal to get to the multi-goal lead. The No. 11 Rams were unable to break Clippers’ goalie Aspen Devlin in a game that could be best described as a defensive slugfest.

“It was a little bit of ugly hockey for a while,” Falmouth head coach Brian Ferreira said. “There was a lot of slapping the puck, banging the puck around. At the end of the day, we came out of it.”

The first period saw some chances from each side but only Falmouth as able to capitalize. This came when Casey Roth intercepted a Rams breakout pass and burst towards the net with speed before finding the back of the net.

Neither team was able to put one away in the middle period, although a plethora of penalties led to some good opportunities for each side. This came on both power play and penalty kill situations, something Ferreira attributed to the Clippers’ philosophy.

“We like to pressure and amp it up on the penalty kill,” Ferreira said. “Other coaches tell their kids ‘let’s settle it, let’s slow down,’ so we do the opposite.”

The third period saw the Rams put significant pressure on Devlin, but the freshman was consistently up to the task, with a breakaway stop late in the period serving as a highlight.

“Almost on every shot I think ‘hey, we’ve made it so far, this team’s like my family, I’m not letting it go now,’” Devlin said. “I just wanted to make it to the last game and now we have.”

Falmouth now awaits a test against defending champion and No. 1 seed Duxbury in the final. As her team looks ahead to this title bout, Devlin reflected on the incredible opportunity.

“It’s insane,” Devlin said. “Especially as a freshman, this is a literal dream. The whole season I have just been thinking about that moment and it’s now happening. It’s crazy.