It looked like Princeton Day School girls’ hockey star Zeeza Cole might be down for the count last Sunday when she was sent sprawling to the ice in the second period as the Panthers hosted Shady Side Academy (Pa.).

The junior forward lay motionless on the ice for minutes before gingerly skating to the Panther bench.

At that point, Cole wasn’t sure if she would be back in the contest which saw PDS trailing 2-0 at the time.

“I have had a lot of concussions,” said Cole. “After the whistle, a girl fell on top of my head so it got hit a little bit. I was a little nauseous and my head started hurting.”

After spending some time with the trainer, Cole returned to the game and proceeded to inflict some pain on the Indians, scoring two power play goals to knot the game at 2-2 heading into the third period.

“We knew we had a 5-on-3 and we just wanted to get the goal,” said Cole. “We definitely did capitalize. In the first period we could see that the goalie was letting up tons of rebounds and we knew that we could get some off that. It was nice, getting back at them for roughing up some of our players, including myself. We have been working on a lot of rebound opportunities like that. It is good that we are working on that and could score on two rebounds.”

In the third period, though, PDS couldn’t convert any rebounds as it ended up falling 4-2.

“We came out strong in the third period; we have a really short bench,” said Cole.

“We are down two of our stars so it’s definitely hard. Everyone stepped up; we tried hard so it is not something to be ashamed about. We never gave up. We kept trying; we were in it until the end.”

PDS head coach Lorna Gifis Cook liked the way her team persevered as it fought to dig out of a hole after Shady Side scored two goals within a 10-second span early in the first period.

“Going 2-0 early definitely caught us off guard,” said Cook. “We came out pretty flat so we deserved to be down 2-0. The focus was not on what already happened but on how do we bounce back from this and how do we get them to regroup. I think that slowly it got a little better.”

Things were a lot better for the Panthers after weathering the early storm. “The second period was much stronger; we came out hard,” said Cook, whose team started the weekend by edging Holton Arms (Md.) 3-2 on Saturday.

“I thought we caught a break with the 5-on-3 and we were able to take advantage. That is what hockey is about, capitalizing on those opportunities.”

Cook was not surprised that Cole took advantage of the scoring opportunities.

“The girl jumped on Zeeza after the play; I thought it should have been a penalty,” said Cook. “She took a little bit of a break and she wanted to go back out there and make up for it. She knows how to finish.”

Unfortunately, the Panthers couldn’t finish things off in the third period.

“We spent too much time in the box; the girls fought really hard to not give up a power play goal there,” said Cook, reflecting on the loss which left PDS with a 5-3 record.

“It is just unfortunate that they were able to get a good bounce and get that third goal. After that, it just seemed like we didn’t get any breaks to go our way.”

While the Panthers didn’t get the breaks over the last 15 minutes of the contest, they showed a resolve that should help them over the rest of the winter.

“It was a positive that they were able to come back from going down early and not get too caught up in that,” added Cook, whose team plays at Summit High on January 13.

“We had a very short bench; the fact that they were able to kill off a lot of those penalties is a huge positive. Especially since we had players killing who don’t usually kill. It makes you feel a little better even coming off a loss to know that they were able to bounce back.”

In Cook’s view, the team learned a valuable lesson about focus. “You always need to make sure you treat it as though it is going to be your toughest game of the year and just go out hard,” said Cook.

“You can never take anything for granted. Typically, we have had pretty strong first periods and today the second period was much stronger.”

Cole, for her part, is confident that the Panthers can get tougher. “I think we need to just keep working as a team,” added Cole.

“Getting stronger and capitalizing on the other team’s mistakes and just coming out strong every period.”