BFA hockey topples Spaulding for D-I repeat

A title-contender isn’t reassembled overnight.

Defending champion BFA-St. Albans, whose senior-heavy group a year ago included the state’s top-scoring line, started the process in the summer and remained a work in progress as December passed the baton to January.

“It took us a bit, it took us half a season to clean things up, improve defensively, get a freshman goaltender ready, play a bunch of kids so we had some depth,” BFA coach Toby Ducolon said.

But two unbeaten months later the Bobwhites had the team for the job.

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Locked in the fourth nailbiter of the winter with top-seeded Spaulding, No. 2 BFA bagged the goal to decide not just the season series but the Division I high school boys hockey title too, with Connor Wood’s third-period backhand sealing a 2-1 win at Gutterson Fieldhouse on Thursday night.

Rebuild: Complete.

“It’s a different team than last year, without a doubt, but it’s a good hockey team — it’s a very good hockey team,” Ducolon said. “You don’t beat Spaulding with any other unit.”

Less than a minute and a half after the Crimson Tide (18-3-2) netted the equalizer through Brad Romeo, Wood took a pass from Ethan Bonnette off the left boards, deked a defender, froze Spaulding goalie Cody Gosselin (17 saves) with another slick fake and deposited the game-winner with 7:12 to play.

The tally only served to pad the Bobwhites (18-2-3) already-record haul of state titles with the 18th in 26 championship appearances.

“It was pretty surreal. The guy was giving me space and I made a move and I slid it to my backhand and put it top shelf,” Wood said. “And my boys are coming home with a repeat. No. 18, baby.”

But when Romeo equalized with a power play slap shot from above the right circle, it looked like the teams were cued up to play deep into the night, prolonging a campaign that saw them trade 2-1 wins and a 1-1 draw.

At stake for Spaulding: Ending a title drought for the school that stretched back to the hockey team’s 2010 crown.

“They have three lines that you can’t tell the difference between any of them and (Wood) made a great little move and buried it,” Crimson Tide coach Clay Bell said.

“What can you do? That was a fun game. We brought it on at the end and I’m so proud of the guys,” Bell said. “You know, this group of guys is just the hardest-working group. They persevered, never gave up — and today we could’ve, they were all over us, and we fought back like we do with Tide hockey.”

Owen Hungerford staked the reigning champs the lead with a power play goal at 12:16 of the first period.

Cycling around the Tide on the man-advantage, Bonnette fed Cooper Cioffi, who laid off to Hungerford in the right circle to snap a wrister that beat Gosselin glove-side.

And BFA’s freshman goalie, Dan Ellis (18 saves), looked the part of a veteran in keeping one of Division I’s best attacking units off the board for two periods.

“We’re not at Gutterson Fieldhouse without Dan Ellis. It’s not a secret,” Ducolon said.

“To neutralize a couple of their big seniors, that’s key. That’s the only way we are going to beat them or anybody else in the state is going to beat them,” Ducolon said. “We were lucky enough to do it tonight. You don’t always do it and you don’t do it very often — people haven’t all winter.”

But after the Bobwhites dominated the first period and a half, penalties allowed Spaulding to gain traction midway through the second and pounce on the power play early in the third as Denver Heath and Luke Krupa set up Romeo for the long-distance strike.

“They were getting better as the game went on … that’s a big finish,” Ducolon said. “We talk about closure all the time, how to close games out, and that was very good tonight.”

Closed out like champions, which is far from coincidence for the school that turned St. Albans into Hockeytown, VT. The Bobwhites finished the year on a 14-game winning streak, going unbeaten since a Jan. 7 loss to South Burlington.

“It’s a tradition. That’s all it is, tradition,” BFA captain Isaac Cioffi said. “Families go through — we had plenty of families here and every single one of them probably had a championship under their belt.”

Contact Austin Danforth at 651-4851 or edanforth@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/eadanforth