By KEVIN OKLOBZIJA
There was a time when sectional championship bricks in hockey stacked up year after year in the trophy cases at Aquinas Institute.
Between 1999 and 2007, the Li’l Irish won six Section V titles. Sectional superiority wasn’t just the goal, it was expected.
Little did they know the winning wouldn’t last forever. Since 2007, only dust collected next to those trophies.
Until Monday, that is, when a determined group of players – family, senior captain Caleb Wood called his teammates – played a near-perfect game to upend previously unbeaten Webster Schroeder 4-2 at RIT’s Gene Polisseni Center.
“We’ve been working for this moment for a long time,” Wood said during the jubilant on-ice post-game celebration after the Section V Class B championship game. “Alumni have been texting us today and we’ve been preparing all day for this.”
Wood and junior forward Ryan Carmody each scored two goals and senior goalie Reagan Gray stopped 29 shots to stun Schroeder (22-1).
“No one ever thought we’d do it other than the 27 guys in that room and the coaches,” Aquinas coach Chuck Dossier said after his team improved to 17-4-2 and earned a spot in the state quarterfinals on Saturday (site and time to be determined).
For Schroeder, the loss brought a sudden – and premature – end to a remarkable season. The Warriors ran the table during the regular season, going 20-0, then kept rolling with convincing victories in the quarterfinals and semifinals.
But they lost the game that mattered most, and that’s what stung so badly on Monday night.
“Maybe at some point over the next month we’ll be able to talk about the historic season we had,” Schroeder coach David Broussard said. “We did have something special, and that’s what the Aquinas players were saying in the handshake line.”
In the title game, however, the Warriors just never found their best stride, at least not with any consistency, and that was primarily because the pesky play by the Li’l Irish wouldn’t allow it.
“Earned and deserved,” Broussard said of the Aquinas victory.
Playing an undefeated team can be intimidating for an opponent. But it also can present the burden of must-produce expectations.
“I do not feel we came in overconfident,” Broussard said. “We did our best to not allow that all year.”
Still, the Warriors were just not their usual crisp-passing, quick-moving, dangerous selves.
“We were never able to get to our game,” Broussard said. “They were way more desperate than we were.”
Which is why the teams played a scoreless first period, at least officially. Schroeder’s Anthony Gervaise thought he scored at 11:37 but the official properly disallowed the goal because the net had been dislodged well before the puck crossed the goal line.
Wood then gave AQ the momentum 5:13 into the second period by scoring an unassisted breakaway goal. He stole the puck near his own blue line and sprinted the other way for the goal and the 1-0 lead.
Carmody extended the lead to 2-0 at 15:19 of the second period. He sped down the left of the slot and fired a wrist shot between the legs of goalie Cole Hudson. For just the third time all year, the Warriors found themselves down by two.
Except Aquinas tried not to think about the lead as the third period began.
“We try to play like we’re down 1-0, we never want to play like we’re on top,” Carmody said.
The mindset worked as Wood pushed the lead to 3-0 with a power-play goal 5:28 into the third. A member of the varsity since his eighth-grade season of 2022, he not only dominated defensively in the AQ zone, he powered the offense.
“More than 90 percent of the games we played he was probably the best player on the ice,” Dossier said. “Get on his back and go for the ride.”
Schroeder was by no means done, though. Just 17 seconds later, junior defenseman Anthony Pusateri zipped a wrister past Gray from the high slot.
The Warriors then pulled within 3-2 with 45.4 seconds remaining when Pusateri dangled into the slot and lifted a backhander into the net.
“When they scored their second goal, some of us got a little down but the coaches just said, let’s get gritty,” Carmody said.
Truth be told, the Li’l Irish displayed plenty of grit all game. They blocked countless shots – probably at least 20 in Broussard’s estimation – and refused to allow the Warriors to make the cross-ice pass from the half wall.
There’s plenty razzle-dazzle in their repertoire but they can adapt when necessary.
“We proved tonight that we’re also a gritty team,” Carmody said.
Carmody then clinched the victory with 10.2 seconds remaining by hitting an empty net and the party was on.
“They put so much extra effort into it,” Dossier said. “I’ve been coaching 27 years, and 25 in Section V and this is my first (title) ever and it’s pretty sweet.”
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