HAMPDEN, Conn. — The campus of Notre Dame High School in West Haven was sure to be rocking Wednesday morning. Still basking in the afterglow of the Division I championship won by the men's basketball team on Sunday at Mohegan Sun Arena, the Green Knights took on New Canaan, the No. 1 seed in Division I, as the second-seeded ice hockey team took on No. 1 New Canaan. We had a great chance to win two state titles. The title game will be played Tuesday night at Quinnipiac University.
Notre Dame defeated the Rams 5-1 two days before Christmas, and the final game of the season felt like déjà vu. The Green Knights started a 1-0 game with two goals in the second period, helped by a decisive five-minute kill on New Canaan's power play, and won 4-1, earning the school's second state won the title. Ranked 9th overall in the past 3 years.
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Senior goaltender Layne Jackson stopped 24 of 25 Ram shots and was named the game's Most Valuable Player. Some of those saves came in the final three minutes of the game after New Canaan pulled netminder Mason Pickering to use a sixth attacker.
Neither team had a dent in the scoring until the Knights' Dominique Dowd tapped in a loose rebound off a shot from just left of the goal crease by Logan Hurd. Both teams were skating 4-on-4 at the time, as both teams were assessed minor penalties.
Just 1:29 into midfield, a pass play between Nathan Marczak and Max Schroder resulted in Marczak's shot beating Pickering on the short side. The momentum gained by the two-goal advantage seemed to disappear near midway through the period, but a significant penalty for head contact on Marczak and a 10-minute foul forced the Rams into a 5-minute unrestricted power play. Ta.
Despite having several chances to score, New Canaan was unable to score on the long man advantage. Notre Dame's controversial goal in the final seconds of the game before the second intermission looked like the Rams had completely taken their breath away.
Pickering stopped James Mascari's shot and the rebound went in front of the New Canaan net. A Ram defender inadvertently bounced the puck back toward the cage, sending it over the goal line. After a meeting between officials and goal judges, the Knights emerged with a 3-0 lead.
Jackson continued to shine in the Knights' net, making two great stops on New Canaan's power play, including one on his stomach. The Rams finally solved him later when Brayden Roby scored on a rebound of Max Lowe's shot to cut the deficit to two points.
With just seconds remaining, Mascari hit a near-ice-length backhand, clinching the championship for Notre Dame, coached by Larry Vieira. The team finished 17-4-2 in the regular season and state tournament, with all four losses coming to out-of-state hockey powerhouses: Pope Francis, Bishop Feehan, Bishop Hendricken, and Xaverian Brothers.
New Canaan had won its previous two tournament games by a combined score of 13-1 and was seeking its first state championship since 1972.
