At the beginning of the season, Gunnery’s goal was much higher than winning the NEPSAC Piatelli/Simmons Small School tournament.
With high-scoring wing Alex Jefferies returning for his senior season and a solid cast around him, Gunnery envisioned another run at the Elite 8.
Inconsistency and a lack of depth, caused in part by some players leaving school over the summer, kept Gunnery outside the coveted top eight.
“Our struggle all year was consistency,” said head coach Craig Badger. "We were really good at the beginning of the season then hit a rough patch. We got it back for the Avon Old Farms Christmas Tournament and were awful after the break at the True Hockey Prep Cup. Sometimes we didn’t come to play. There were lots of ups and downs."
After finishing the regular season 16-12-3, Gunnery was the sixth seed in the Small School tournament. The playoffs could go one of two ways, and that was Badger’s message to his team heading into the quarterfinal matchup against New Hampton.
“It was equally possible that we were going to run through it and win it all as it was that we get blown out in the first game. We just didn’t know,” said Badger.
“To the kids’ credit, we talked about the opportunity to keep playing. We talked about being together and sticking together as a group.”
Gunnery upset New Hampton, 5-2, to continue to fight for another game. Thanks to a slew of upsets, Gunnery hosted seventh-seeded Rivers in the semifinals and again won by a score of 5-2.
That set up a battle against Pomfret in the finals. Gunnery overcame 2-0 and 3-1 deficits to triumph over the Griffins, 5-3.
“You wrote the best ending possible,” Badger told his team after that victory at Trinity College’s Koeppel Community Center on championship weekend.
As expected, Jefferies was a star in his final three prep school games. The Lunenburg, Mass., native scored five goals and added five assists, including two and two in the final. The other hero of the final was defenseman Zander Lizotte of Scarborough, Maine.
He scored a hat trick and added an assist in the final. Along with a goal and an assist earlier in the tournament, Lizotte equaled his regular-season offensive production in just three playoff games.
“It’s every hockey player’s dream,” said Lizotte of scoring the hat trick in the final. “It was a good day for me. It felt absolutely incredible. Everything went right for me. I got some good bounces and good play by my teammates.”
Lizotte’s playoff performance was somewhat of a microcosm of the team’s. It had been an inconsistent year for the senior, who played his first two years of prep school at Berwick Academy. However, he played his best hockey when it mattered most.
“This was an up-and-down year for him,” Badger said. "He had some stretches where he struggled to find his game. He struggled to find the balance of being an offensive guy with being a defenseman and making the smart play."
Lizotte’s perseverance and willingness to fight through the growing pains impressed Badger, who just finished his fifth season as the bench boss of the Washington, Conn., prep school.
“To his credit, he kept at it,” Badger said. "A lot of kids would let that break them, but he found his game. He stepped up huge in that last game. He had four points, but he also played one of his better overall games. He was good defensively and made good puck decisions."
“Picking my spots and when I should be jumping up into the play, realizing when certain things are needed and when you need to stay back and play defense,” Lizotte said when asked about what he learned most this season. “You don’t want to give up odd-man rushes.”
When asked what NHL player he likes to watch, there was no hesitation from Lizotte.
“I love Erik Karlsson. I like everything about how he plays,” he said of the San Jose Sharks star and two-time Norris Trophy winner as the NHL’s best defenseman.
“Zander is a kid who has a lot of offensive ability. He’s very athletic. He’s a good baseball player as well,” said Badger.
Up next on Lizotte’s hockey journey is likely a year or two of junior hockey before heading off to college.
While Jefferies and Lizotte were doing the bulk of the scoring in the championship game, there were other players who stepped up. UConn commit Mark D’Agostino of North Branford, Conn., had an assist after dishing out three helpers in the quarterfinal win.
An unsung hero, according to Badger, was defenseman Erik Charpentier, a first-year prep player from Silver Spring, Md.
“Charpentier was good. He played a lot of minutes for us down the stretch,” Badger said.
“We were thinner than we were supposed to be on defense. Charpentier is a project. He’s raw,” Badger said. “He grew from the start of the school year to the end of the season. He’s still physically developing. His feet were starting to catch up to his hands and mind. Long term, he’s going to be very good. He has to push through the awkward physical stage.”
While many key players will be gone, never count out Badger, Charpentier and Gunnery. The program has solidified itself among the best in prep school hockey over the past decade.
@JeffCoxSports
