The Warwick girls co-op hockey team fell to visiting Mount St. Charles/Cumberland last week 3-0 in its season opener at the Thayer Arena.

Despite outshooting Mount in the first period, Warwick would not be able to keep pace in the second and fell behind 2-0 heading into the third. Mount added one final empty-net goal to set the score to 3-0 and wrap up the win.

“The season started late this year so we really haven’t had much time to practice. We have a new team this year with some new players, we’re still working on the fundamentals, but that will come in time. (Mount) is a good team, their goalie is good,” said Warwick coach Dave Tibbetts after the loss.

Warwick had six power-play opportunities throughout the match but still came up empty handed. Captain Ella Centracchio felt that the team’s power-play unit will improve with more practice and that communication on the ice will be key looking ahead.

“We haven’t had a lot of time to really get into special teams at practice, but we’ll use this as a learning experience and get better on the power-play from here,” said Centracchio, “We know what we have to work on now in practice. We need to work on communication, working as a team. We lost today, but I feel like now we’ve got it out of us. We’ll learn from this loss and be better from it down the road.”

Despite the loss, fellow captain Rose Flaherty has been impressed with the team in the early going, especially with the newcomers.

“We only have six players returning this year so most of us haven’t played much together. I think as the season goes on, we’ll be able to come together,” said Flaherty. “I have been impressed (with this team), I remember a few years ago when we had a bunch of new girls and we weren’t very good, but this year we are all working hard, we have a lot of skill, we will get better.”

Tibbetts was proud of his club’s performance and felt that it competed with one of the top teams in the state.

“We made a few mistakes, had a few breakdowns. The first goal was on a breakaway, the second was on a screen when our goalie couldn’t see through the traffic. If you take away the breakaway and the screen, it’s a 0-0 game before the empty-netter. We felt that we were in the game and had chances to win it, but we just couldn’t put any pucks in the net,” said Tibbetts. “I’m proud of the girls and the effort they put forth, though. They didn’t give up and worked hard every shift. For some of them, this was their first-ever hockey game tonight. We just need to regroup.”