BOSTON — March Madness officially begins as NCAA college basketball slots are released Sunday night. That same night, the MIAA Men's Hockey State Tournament sparked its own frenzy at his TD Garden.
The Division 1 state championship came down to the final seconds between No. 1 St. John's Prep and No. 11 Winchester High.
St. John's Prep senior forward Johnny Tye scored off a rebound as time expired, giving the Eagles a 3-2 come-from-behind victory and their second state championship in three years.
An unofficial replay of the goal showed that the buzzer appeared to have sounded just a split second before the puck left the senior's stick. There is no replay review conducted by referees after a goal has been scored.
“There's no instant replay. We found out with the goal that was scored at the end of the second period (when the referee's whistle blew before the SJP goal was scored),” St. John's Prep coach Christian Hanson said. . Net). It's a decision that officials have to make in real time on the ice, and I'm confident they got both decisions right. ”
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When asked about the controversial ending that could tarnish the title, Hanson replied: It's nothing dirty to me. We just won the state championship. ”
“It's a tough loss.'' “I feel bad for the kids,'' Winchester coach Gino Khachadourian said. “They put everything on the ice and did everything they could. It's not right to lose a game like that. … They were distraught (in the locker room) and now thanks to social media, it's not right to lose a game like that. , (the replays) are all there. That makes it even worse. I wish no one would see it and be able to say, “The game's over, we lost.'' . But now with the whole social media thing, it's very difficult for them to swallow it. ”
“But I mean, it was a great game by both teams,” Khachadorian said. “(St. John's Prep) is the No. 1 team for a reason. They kept coming, kept playing, and I thought we fought them as much as we could. The result was just a fluke.”
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The winning goal was Thailand's second goal of the match and second of the season. He scored the tying goal on a power play with 9:26 left, collected a rebound and drove it home, erasing the 2-1 lead Winchester had taken a minute earlier.
“I lost consciousness,” Ty said of the winning goal. “I didn't have to do anything special. Brady (Plaza) made the shot. (Christian) Rosa, (Jake) Vanna, Jack Doherty, it was all of them. They couldn't have made it this easy for me. It wouldn't have been. … We tried to backdoor, hopefully, get a rebound. We didn't know how much time we had left. I think we got a little bit lucky in the right place, right time.”
St. John's Prep (22-3) finished the season on a 10-game winning streak with tournament wins over No. 32 Lincoln-Sudbury (6-2), No. 16 Wellesley (7-1) and No. 8 Hingham. . (3-0), No. 4 Xaverian (4-0) and now No. 11 Winchester (3-2).
“We knew it was going to be a very difficult game. I never thought for a moment, 'Oh, we're playing the No. 11 seed, so this is going to be an easy path to victory.'” This week. We prepared like never before,” Hanson said. “We had a great result. It showed our resilience and the never-give-up attitude of many of our players.”
Winchester (16-10-1), the only public school to reach the Division I Final Four, entered Sunday night's game with back-to-back wins over private schools. They defeated No. 18 Arlington Catholic 3-2 in OT. In the Elite Eight, they defeated No. 3 Catholic Memorial 4-1 in the Final Four.
Chris McCarthy scored Winchester's two goals on Sunday night, and goaltender Aiden Emerick made 48 saves in the loss.
“He's been playing like that the whole playoffs,” Katchadurian said of Emerick, a junior. He's like, “Oh, I should have eaten that.” He brought us this far. He was a great force for us. We wouldn't be here without him. ”
