Many of the girls who make up the East Coast Wizards Tier II 16U team have come close to winning national titles.

They’ll have another shot later this month in Lansing, Mich.

The Wizards earned a berth in the Toyota-USA Hockey Girls Tier II National Championships after reaching the finals in the Massachusetts District tournament in November.

This year’s Wizards, who went on to win the Massachusetts title, have strong ties to Wizards teams that fell just short at the national tournaments in 2011 in Anaheim and in 2013 in San Jose.

As a 12U team, the Wizards lost the Tier II national title game 1-0 in overtime to the San Jose Sharks. As a 14U team, they fell 2-1 in the national semifinals on a 5-on-3 goal by the Connecticut Ice Cats with 9.7 seconds left in regulation.

Casey Freehill, Kendall Milligan, Emily Devine, Carmen Baceras, Rachel Difraia, Justine Michau and Emily Smith are still with the team after playing in both of those tournaments. There are five other girls who played in San Jose and two who have returned from the squad that went to Anaheim, and even that does not account for all the national tournament experience on the 20-player roster.

“Almost everybody has been with the Wizards to nationals,” coach Mark Lissner said. “We expect that we’re going to be competitive every time we step on the ice.”

This group of Wizards has a few extra obstacles this time around as they head to nationals as a split-season team for the first time. They have not had a game since November, since the Wizards players were suiting up for their respective high schools in the winter.

After getting together one time in January, they reunited to start practicing 10 days before heading to Michigan.

When they were last together in competition, the Wizards headed to the third period of the Massachusetts semifinals trailing Assabet Valley, 2-1. After scoring three goals in the first seven minutes of the third period, East Coast pulled out a 5-3 win.

Freehill had the team’s first two goals. Rachel Peacock scored the go-ahead goal 12 seconds into a power play in the third period. Corinne McCool assisted two goals and scored an empty-netter late.

East Cost beat the New England Falcons 5-0 in the championship game. All three lines scored at least once and Cassidy Smith had the shutout in goal. Because Massachusetts qualifies two teams for girls’ nationals in all but the Tier I 19U division, both the Wizards and Falcons move on to Lansing.

Before the state tournament, the Wizards won all seven of their New England Girls’ Hockey League 16 American Division games by a combined margin of 50-7. With the exception of the semifinal struggle, the dominance continued in district play, where the Wizards won five games by a total of 28-7.

“When we had them before, they were 12s and 14s,” said Lissner, who coached the team through each of the near misses at nationals. “The high school thing didn’t break up the season, although as 14s, with some of them playing on high school teams, we only had them on Sundays.

“It’s a grind on them six days a week with the high school season.”

At this age, Massachusetts teams split their season around the high school schedule to avoid that conflict and overload during the winter.

“Hopefully, we’re not too rusty our first game,” Lissner said.

The preparation is aided by the chance to work with the Wizards 19U Tier II team that also won the district and is headed to nationals.

Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.