Every team begins every season with expectations.
Some are said out loud. Coaches will often opt for typical ones like "Let's get better every game" or "Let's be the hardest team to play against." That all makes sense and those are great goals to set.
But in the back of everyone's mind, every team has a place it wants to get to. In boys NEPSAC hockey this past season, for a young team like Rivers or Thayer, it was about getting players used to the prep school level and building for winning teams in the future. Some teams had lots of new faces, like Salisbury, which meant it took some time for the squad to come together to find wins.
And then there were the ones at the top like Cushing, Avon Old Farms and Kimball Union, which all entered this season with talented rosters and lofty goals.
This story is all about the teams that exceeded expectations, whether it be their own or the ones put on them from the outside (cough, cough: us).
Let's dive in. These are organized in alphabetical order.
Belmont Hill
Brian Phinney's first season as a head coach in 2021-22 almost went as well as a first-year bench boss could hope for. The Sextants blazed through the regular season, going 21-3-3 and making it all the way to the Elite 8 title game, where they fell to Salisbury.
The real challenge for Phinney was the 2022-23 campaign. Belmont Hill lost a lot of the roster, including star forwards James Fisher (Wilmington, Mass.) and Teddy Stiga (Sudbury, Mass.), as well as goalie Sam Scopa (Lexington, Mass.).
The Sextants looked shaky when the season opened, posting a 5-4-2 record through 11 games. But they found their game in the second half, going 14-2-1 over the final 17 games of the regular season. There was an 11-game unbeaten streak in there.
There was a whole lot of offense. Yale commit Ronan O'Donnell (Fairfield, Conn.) led the way, but seniors Brock Cummings and Daniel Markham (Winchester, Mass.) pitched in quite a bit. Defensively, Phinney's team boasted a strong core of seniors Matthew Biotti (Cambridge, Mass.) and Josh Doolan (Southborough, Mass.), along with junior Lenny Greenberg who made life easier for the two youngsters in net — JJ Thibodeau (Waltham, Mass.), an '07 freshman, and Keagin Wilson (Hingham, Mass.), an '06 sophomore.
Frederick Gunn
Unlike most teams in this story, head coach Craig Badger's team had a solid 2021-22 campaign. The Highlanders went 20-11-0 and earned the No. 2 seed in the 2022 Large School Tournament, falling to Pomfret in the championship.
But Frederick Gunn lost a lot of seniors. The team's five leading scorers were seniors and departed after that season.
Badger's squad didn't miss a beat when the new season began in November. Alex LoGuercio (Monroe, Conn.), an '04, transferred in as a junior from Phillips Andover. He had four goals and seven points with Phillips Andover but broke out this winter with 28 goals, the second-most in the region, and 42 points in 35 games. Centering LoGuercio was Jacob Rothman — an '05 who posted zero points as a sophomore but exploded for 13 goals and 35 points in 36 games as a junior. Riding on the right side was Mark Pizzo (Monroe, Conn.). The '05 notched a team-high 28 assists.
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Those three helped Frederick Gunn to score the most goals in the region (153).
On defense, seniors Christian Wood (Shelton, Conn.) and Michael Ryan led the core. Senior Ryan Crowshaw (West Hartford, Conn.) got the most reps in net, while Mitchell McCusker saw a good amount of time as well.
Frederick Gunn was a consistent force throughout the season, going 18-9-5 and earning the No. 3 seed in the Small School Tournament. Even though Badger's team lost to Lawrence Academy in the final, it was still a season that surpassed expectations.
Speaking of Lawrence Academy...
Lawrence Academy
The Spartans went 22-2-2 in 2019-20 and earned the No. 1 seed in the Elite 8 Tournament after being led by current Providence College standout and Boston Bruins draft pick Riley Duran (Woburn, Mass.). Then COVID hit and wiped out the 2020-21 season. Like many schools, Lawrence Academy had a tough time recovering in 2021-22, going 5-15-1.
Things weren't going to get any easier entering this winter. As already mentioned, the ISL Keller division would be stacked.
Lawrence Academy, led by head coach Robbie Barker, found a way to succeed. The Spartans didn't dominate the regular season like rival Milton Academy or even to the level of Tabor. But they kept things close and finished 10-11-4. Most likely, their difficult schedule is what propelled them to the No. 4 seed in the Small School Tournament.
CHAMPS: Avon wins Elite 8 | Taft wins Large School | Lawrence Academy wins Small School
The Spartans were fortunate in that they didn't hit their stride until the end of the season. That's when senior goalie Vincent Lamberti emerged and led the Spartans to a Small School Tournament championship win. Junior forwards Owen Leahy (Providence, R.I.) and Brendan Hirsch (Arlington, Mass.) were also catalysts in Lawrence Academy's late-season push.
Milton Academy
The 2021-22 version of the Mustangs had its fair share of ups and downs, going 9-10-1 and losing a fair number of one-goal games. Entering the season, it didn't help that head coach Paul Cannata would be without superstar defenseman Chris Romaine (Braintree, Mass.) and have question marks in net with returning senior Harrison Brown and some transfer from Belmont Hill's JV team named Sam Caulfield (Needham, Mass.).
Well, we know how things turned out.
Milton Academy finished 17-5-5, winning the Flood-Marr Tournament in December and locking up the No. 3 seed in the Elite 8 Tournament. On defense, senior Mason Chen stepped up in a big way, posting eight goals and 31 points and solidifying his role as a two-way force in the NEPSAC. Sophomore defender Dylan Hunt (Marlborough, Mass.) made big strides, too.
Offensively, Jacob Pohl led the way after Mikka Kelechian went down in February. Brendan Maher and Will Cannata (Milton, Mass.) also pitched in a lot of the scoring.
But the story of the year for the Mustangs was Caulfield in net. The '06 took over, posting the region's best save percentage (.948) and a great goals-against average (1.94). His athleticism stole multiple games for Milton Academy.
Tabor
After a sub-.500 season last year, Tabor was far from the most talked about team in the ISL Keller division entering 2022-23. Belmont Hill and Nobles were the two top teams along with St. Sebastian's, which boasted numerous intriguing prospects. The Arrows were inside of our preseason top 10.
Tabor got out to a roaring start this winter, going 9-2-2. The Seawolves looked poised to dominate their division and earn Elite 8 contention. Head coach Gerry Dineen's team stumbled down the stretch a bit, going 4-7-3 to end the regular season, but still had done enough to earn the No. 5 seed in the Large School Tournament. That's where Tabor upset rival St. Sebastian's in the quarterfinals.
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So, how did the Seawolves do it?
Senior forward Jack DesRuisseuax (Manchester, N.H.) built on his great junior season and posted a team-high 18 goals and 34 points before going down with an injury toward the season's end. Junior forwards Keanan Dewberry and Cam Gaffney (East Greenwich, R.I.) pitched out quite a bit inside the top six as well. Senior Jason Zaccari and junior Cole Estey (Barnstable, Mass.) established themselves as forces on defense.
In net, senior Gus Ackerman (Marion, Mass.) posted a great season with a 2.72 GAA and a .916 save percentage.
Taft
On Nov. 22, Jeff Cox, my teammate, wrote a story previewing seven prep prospects for the 2023 NHL Draft. Taft goalie Rudy Guimond was No. 5 and he wrote this:
"[Guimond] should get plenty of rubber on a Taft team that isn't expected to be as strong as many of its opponents on most nights."
Cox was right — Guimond got plenty of rubber and thrived, posting a sparkling 2.34 GAA and a .943 save percentage (fifth in the region). Guimond's strong play elevated Taft past opponents in most games as the Yale commit was the only prep goalie to face over 1,000 shots. He led the Rhinos to a 20-8-0 record and a Large School championship, defeating Salisbury, 3-2, in overtime. Guimond had 49 saves.
But while Guimond was stopping pucks at one end, someone had to be scoring them at the other. That's where seniors Jackson Holl (Avon, Conn.) and J.J. Lemieux, as well as junior Derek Tremblay, came in. Holl posted an impressive 50 points, while Lemieux had 37 and Tremblay notched 35.
Junior defenseman Alexander Kenderson (Watertown, Conn.) broke out on defense, scoring four goals and 19 points. One of those goals was the overtime-winning tally against Salisbury in the final.
Westminster
The Martlets entered the season with potential, but there were other Housatonic teams generating more headlines. Salisbury was the big one, coming off yet another Elite 8 championship. Then there was Avon Old Farms and Kent, who both entered this winter with top prospects and big expectations.
Westminster had an up-and-down start to the season. Head coach Tim Joncas' team won three-straight games to open the season but lost all four matchups at the Flood-Marr Tournament. But then the Marlets found their footing, winning 14 of their final 18 games en route to a 17-8-0 finish.
The star was '05 Ryan Shaw (East Longmeadow, Mass.), who burst onto the scene with 18 goals and 45 points — both team-highs. His offensive prowess was all over the season, but especially in the final two games of the regular season when Westminster needed two wins to secure its Elite 8 spot. Against Deerfield and Belmont Hill on back-to-back days, Shaw posted three goals and three assists.
Along with Shaw, Blake Burke (Trumbull, Conn.), Wade Volo (North Conway, N.H.) and Brian Judge were key cogs offensively and junior goalie Matteo De Luca was stellar in between the pipes.
