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Cumberland rules Division II |
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Saturday, 22 March 2008 |
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By ERIC BENEVIDES Sports writer PROVIDENCE --- Cumberland High's 19-year wait is over.
Senior center and tournament MVP Kyle McLaughlin put an exclamation point on his wonderful high school career by netting a hat trick on Saturday afternoon to lead the Clippers to a 5-3 triumph over St. Raphael Academy and a sweep of their best-of-three Division II championship series at Providence College's Schneider Arena.
The Clippers, who hadn't tasted victory in the state's capitol since capturing three straight Met B titles from 1987-89, conclude their magical season with a 17-3-1 record and send off one of their best senior classes in a number of years in a blaze of glory.
"I told my guys, 'This is something I haven't felt since I was in high school,' " said Cumberland coach Mark Andreozzi, who graduated from Mount St. Charles Academy in the early 1990s with four state crowns under his belt. "I told them, 'All the pain you have right now goes away because you are a champion. It's a feeling you never forget.' I worked them hard all year, and I'm proud of them."
Unlike their convincing 8-2 victory in the series opener, the second-seeded Clippers received a true run for their money from the sixth-seeded Saints, who played their opponents even-steven for the bulk of the game and were only outshot by a 24-22 margin.
"I told everyone last night at practice and this morning, 'We put a whupping on them, (but) they're going to come out, and it's going to be a one- or two-goal game, I promise you that,' " added Andreozzi. "I said, 'What you have to make sure we do is play our game.' It took us about a period to get going, but toward the end, we just started to bear down and try to play a stronger style of hockey."
Unfortunately for the Saints, their nemesis in the Game 1 loss -- surrendering goals on rebounds -- came back to bite them, as three of the Clippers' goals came on the putbacks of rebounds that SRA goaltender Joe Mello Jr. was unable to stop. One of those goals came from junior Matthew Hayes at 5:46 of the second period and snapped a 3-3 tie.
"We stressed that in practice," said Andreozzi. "We went over drill after drill about getting to the net, attacking it, and doing the things we're supposed to do."
The Saints, who wrap up their Cinderella run through the playoffs with an 11-12 record, received a marvelous game from junior center Andrew Bettencourt, who was quiet offensively in the series opener, but was clearly a going concern for the Clippers on Saturday. He scored his team's first two goals and set up the tying score by senior Tommy Votta.
"We definitely did a better job today," said SRA coach Mark Anderson. "We played better defense and we took more quality shots. We came out fighting and tied it up at one point in the second period, but it seemed like every time we scored, we had a little bit of a letdown."
McLaughlin, who graduates as one of the top scorers in the program's history with 55 goals and 68 assists, had been in an offensive funk. His name hardly registered on the stat sheet in the Clippers' exciting three-game semifinal-round series against Smithfield High, and in the Game 1 victory, he contributed three assists.
But on Saturday, he scored the Clippers' first two goals at 7:26 and 8:11 of the first period, and after Hayes netted the eventual game-winning goal, McLaughlin made it a two-goal contest to stay with a power-play score 7:07 into the final period.
"As long as the puck is in the net, that's all I care about," said McLaughlin. "As long as the score on the board at the end of the game is in our favor, that's all that matters."
"Kyle's a captain for a reason," remarked Andreozzi. "He was shut down a little bit in the series, but I kept telling him, 'Just keep going to the net and you'll get it. You'll get it,' and like a true leader, he led today. (And it was) Jonny Pora the night before. That's what you want out of your captains and your seniors. I couldn't ask for a better bunch of guys. Those eight guys are why we won, there's no question about it."
Down 2-0, the Saints got on the board with 5:45 to play in the first period on Bettencourt's first goal off an assist from Tyler Sutton, but Nicholas Haase got the Clippers back on the board with a power-play goal with 1:24 left in the period by tucking in the rebound of a shot by senior Matthew Jones, who finished the game with three assists.
The Clippers, who outshot the Saints by a 14-11 count in that opening period (and all of their shots coming in the final 10:04), only managed to take four shots in the middle period. The Saints, meanwhile, cranked their game up a notch and scored on two of their first four shots of the period to knot the score.
At 3:37, Bettencourt again cut the Clippers' lead to a goal, as he took a pass from Drew Given and used some fancy stickwork to deke Cumberland senior goalie Ed Norberg and flip the puck past him, and at 4:41, Bettencourt won a faceoff in front of the Clippers' net and dished the puck to Votta, who flipped a wristshot from the point that sailed over Norberg's left shoulder.
But the Saints' joy was shortlived. A little more than a minute later, Hayes tallied his goal off a rebound of a slap shot by McLaughlin, and the Clippers were ahead to stay.
"(SRA) came out strong," added Andreozzi. "I kept on telling them, 'We're not shooting, we're not shooting.' And I told Matt, 'If you get that puck in the slot, shoot it,' and he got it in the net."
The Saints did everything they could to get back in the game after that goal and McLaughlin's insurance tally midway through the final period, but Norberg stepped up and shut down the Saints. His finest save of the contest came on a breakaway by Bettencourt with less than five minutes to play in the game, and with 2:50 to play, he wowed the crowd by going all-out to stop Tyler Malo's attempt to score on a rebound.
The Saints, to their defense, went into battle minus two of their top four defensemen, as senior Justin Rapp suffered a second-degree sprain to his left knee in the third period of Thursday's game and junior Josh Gorton was sidelined with a sprained ankle, but Anderson refused to use their absences as an excuse for his team's loss.
"Cumberland really played well," added Anderson. "You can't take anything away from them. They have a really good program and they just wanted it a little bit more than we did. We fought hard to get here, and I'm proud of the way we played in the past few weeks. It was great to be here, but just showing up wasn't enough."
***
Cumberland 3 - 1 - 1 -- 5
St. Raphael 1 - 2 - 0 -- 3
First period: C -- Kyle McLaughlin (Matthew Jones, Jake Howard), power play, 7:26; C -- Kyle McLaughlin (Nicholas Haase), 8:11; SRA -- Andrew Bettencourt (Tyler Sutton), 9:15; C -- Nicholas Haase (Matthew Jones, Eric Meunier), power play, 13:36.
Second period: SRA -- Andrew Bettencourt (Drew Given), power play, 3:37; SRA -- Tom Votta (Andrew Bettencourt), 4:41; C -- Matthew Hayes (Kyle McLaughlin, Matthew Jones), 5:46.
Third period: C -- Kyle McLaughlin (Andrew Bouchard), power play, 7:07.
Shots on goal: Cumberland 24, St. Raphael 22. Goalie saves: C -- Ed Norberg (19 saves); SRA -- Joe Mello Jr. (19 saves).
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 29 March 2008 )
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