HARTFORD, Conn. -- Turns out home-ice advantage is a thing after all.
Connecticut schools Salisbury, Loomis Chaffee and Gunnery all came away with titles in the year-end NEPSAC Hockey prep championships held at Trinity College on Sunday.
Salisbury beat Dexter Southfield in the Stuart/Corkery Elite 8 championship, 4-0; Loomis Chaffee beat Cushing, 2-0, in the Martin/Earl Large Schools title game; and Gunnery opened the tournament with a 5-3 win over Pomfret in the Piatelli/Simmons Small Schools championship game.
Here's what we saw while watching all three games at Trinity:
Gunnery 5, Pomfret 3
Why Gunnery won: When Pomfret (final record: 14-11-3) came out flying and went up 1-0 six minutes in on a Carter Rugg (Hingham, Mass.) goal, and then Tyler Bourque (North Scituate, R.I.) snapped home a great pass from behind the net by Kyle Tomaso (Milford, Mass.) to make it 2-0 four minutes later, it looked like Gunnery (final record: 19-13-3) was in trouble.
Add in the fact that Gunnery seemed to have no answer for Pomfret's aggressive, two-man forecheck, and you've got the makings of a one-sided game.
But the resilient Highlanders were spurred on by, who else, Alex Jefferies (Lunenberg, Mass.), who kicked a rebound from his skates to his stick and fired it into the top corner from in tight two minutes later to bring his team within one. Even a potential heartbreaker with 18.9 seconds left in the period by the Griffins' Ryan Kosinski (Sterling, Mass.) to make it 3-1 didn't seem to dampen Gunnery's newfound enthusiasm.
And that was evident when Gunnery turned on the jets in the second, Zander Lizotte (Scarborough, Maine) putting home a beauty pass by Jefferies from behind the net on the power play to get the Highlanders within one. Then, more than five minutes later, Lizotte dashed down the left side and twisted a wrister between the legs of Andrew Shearson and suddenly the game was tied. Momentum had clearly swung.
Just 1:08 later, Jefferies finished off a great three-touch passing play by tipping home the eventual game winner in the crease, and the Highlanders had the lead for good.
The surge forced Pomfret coach Matt Goethals to call a timeout, but it proved futile. Lizotte finished off the Griffins with his hat trick goal with 4:21 left in the third after keeping the puck in and completing the give-and-go, and the Highlanders were Piatelli/Simmons Small School champs.
Loomis Chaffee 2, Cushing 0
Why Loomis Chaffee won:Â Looking at it on paper, one might say Loomis (final record: 17-7-4) was the underdog coming into this tilt, with Cushing (final record: 23-8-3) one of the more favored and veteran teams around, and led by longtime coach Steve Jacobs.
More significantly, when you add in the absence of senior defenseman Ryan Armstrong (Hamden, Conn.) because of injury and the questionable status of star senior captain Cody Hoban (Guilford, Conn.) because of a healing knee injury, predictions weren't exactly off the charts for the Pelicans against the Penguins.
But Hoban came out flying, seemingly unaffected by his recent injury, scoring the game's first goal with 48.2 seconds left in the first period, tucking home a rebound during a scramble in front.
The game's biggest star by far was Loomis goalie Kyle Chauvette (New Boston, New Hampshire), shaking off his own bumps and bruises to put in an all-world performance, especially early in the second during a sustained Cushing attack that saw him make a glove save on Jackson Dorrington (North Reading, Mass.) and absorb a great chance in close by Max Bogdanovich (Scarborough, Maine).
The Chauvette highlight reel didn't stop there, robbing Billy Norcross (Lynn, Mass.) 3:05 into the third period, following that by nullifying a quick Jake Hewitt (Ashburnham, Mass.) shot off a faceoff, a Cody Sealey (Worcester, Mass.) rebound attempt and a tricky Jacob Banks (Westminster, Mass.) tip in front that was swallowed up by Chauvette's glove.
Cushing applied heavy pressure for about three of the last four minutes, but there were no cracks in Chauvette's armor on this day. Adam Martin scored into an empty net to give the J.R. Zavisza-coached Pelicans the Martin/Earl Large Schools title.
Salisbury 4, Dexter Southfield 0
Why Salisbury won:Â In what was probably the most-anticipated matchup of the three on the biggest day of the season, Salisbury (final record: 24-3-1) took on Dexter Southfield (final record: 25-5-0).
The Crimson Knights were coming off two fairytale wins: a thrilling come-from-behind quarterfinal win over nemesis Kimball Union on Wednesday and an equally thrilling never-say-die win over Avon Old Farms in overtime on Saturday afternoon.
For its part, the Dan Donato-coached powerhouse Dexter Southfield, the only prep school team to reach 25 wins, pushed through to the final based on wins over upstart Hotchkiss on Wednesday, and determined and talented Berkshire on Saturday.
And this game lived up to its billing. Even though the score makes it seem pretty one-sided, both teams had their thrusters on full for the entire game, with things turning chippy in spots.
The steam got pumped into this one before the ice was dry, Massimo Lombardi finishing off some nice work by James Cerepak in the corner just 2:05 into the game, putting Salisbury in the driver's seat early.
Lucas Mercuri, who had a whale of a game, helped push the puck into the Dexter Southfield end on the next goal, which went to Dean Bauchiero (Southington, Conn.) after his pass went in off a defender to make it 2-0 7:57 into the second. A chip pass from Cole Eichler was finished off by Mercuri on a 2-on-1 with 1:55 left in the period to give Salisbury a commanding lead.
The third got nasty, the game's chippy play and borderline hits fueling an explosion. First, Bauchiero was rocked with a borderline high hit by defenseman Brendan O'Donnell in front of the Dexter Southfield bench. After Bauchiero was helped off the ice, on the next play senior Salisbury captain Jarod Crespo seemingly retaliated by crushing Aidan Connolly into the boards, earning a boarding game misconduct. But O'Donnell, still fired up about the reaction to his hit, was issued an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty as well, watering down his team's five-minute power play.
Salisbury was able to successfully kill off the disadvantage, surviving long enough on good puck control and getting major saves when called upon by Nick Haas, who earned the shutout.
Matthew DeBoer scored into an empty net with 16.2 seconds left to seal the deal and give the Andrew Will-coached Crimson Knights an Elite 8 title after coming away empty from the final in the last two.
Paul Grant is an editor and a writer for HockeyJournal.com and Seamans Media. He previously oversaw hockey content at ESPN.com and Sporting News. You can connect with him at pgrant@hockeyjournal.com.
