BY JONATHAN SKUZA
FAIRPORT, N.Y. — Every thrilling hockey contest needs a hero.
Charles Hezel fit that role as he scored the double overtime game winner for Pittsford with 42.8 seconds remaining to send the Panthers back to the Class A title game for the second time in three years, Thursday night.
”I had a few chances early on, but I didn’t bury them,” Hezel said. “However, I knew we were gonna get the chance again.”
Hezel is only a sophomore and was not on the Panthers team that reached Class A glory in 2023. However, the forward shined the brightest when his team and coach needed him the most.
“Give him credit for staying with it, because he had a few good opportunities that we were sitting on the bench pulling our hair out about,” Pittsford’s head coach Rory Foster said. “You count on your guys there and Charlie made a great play to finish it.”
The sophomore had a few chances throughout the contest but could not capitalize for Pittsford. Finally, with some help from Evan Weiner, Hezel was able to bury the 55th Panther shot of the evening to send the Pittsford student section and family members home happy.
”Weiner gave me a good pass and I knew it was going in,” Hezel said.
Even though Hezel was the hero with the game winner, if it wasn’t for senior goaltender Aden Brown’s 35-save shutout, the Panthers would have never gone five periods with the defending Class A champions McQuaid.
Brown knows what it takes to win a championship as he was a part of the 2023 Pittsford team that claimed Class A supremacy.
The senior net minder played a perfect game and made key and tricky saves when he needed to.
”I’m just out there always thinking about the next shot,” Brown said. “No matter what happens before, I kind of just forget about it and I focus on the next shot. That was the main thing that kept me going through the game.”
The senior goalie gave credit to the five guys in front of him as a key to his success.
”I couldn’t be more proud of them,” Brown said. “I thought overall, we played an amazing game, absolutely unreal. I feel like everybody put 100 percent effort in, which is honestly the biggest factor.”
Brown has stepped up his game at the most crucial time and it has resulted in Pittsford for yet another Class A championship.
For first year head coach Rory Foster, it’s an exciting time as he will look to capture his first Class A championship at the helm for Pittsford
”It feels amazing, but really for me, it’s al about the guys,” Foster said. “I said before the game it was their night and their opportunity, and they earned it. I just feel happy for them.”
For McQuaid, they left everything out there and then some Thursday evening. The Knights battled all game and had many grade A scoring chances.
”Our group was right there,” McQuaid’s head coach Joe Dugan said. “Comes down to a bounce that didn’t go our way, but the fight in our group, the resilience we that we had, I was certainly very proud of it.”
The story for McQuaid was senior goaltender Owen Salinas who stopped 54 of 55 shots and did everything in his power to keep the Knights in the contest as long as he could. Salinas was able to help snuff out three Pittsford power plays that produced some high danger scoring chances. The senior goalie played his heart for the team he had been apart of for the last four years.
”I thought I played pretty strong and I thought I gave it my all out there,” Salinas said. “I left nothing out on the table. Obviously sucks that we lost and all, but I couldn’t be more proud of what I’ve done tonight and how I finished the season.”
Pittsford will now face the fourth-seeded Portside Royals who made a trip to the sectional finals last year but fell short against McQuaid. The two teams will face off on Monday, March 3 at 5 p.m. at the Gene Polisseni Center on the campus of RIT.
”The matchup is you got to be ready for whoever you have to play,” Foster said. “we always say that you got to beat the best teams to be the best team. It’s going to be a dog fight”
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