Latest Leaders Carry Rice to D2 Title
March 11, 2017
Second Half reports
PLYMOUTH — They provided the depth for the 2015 Birmingham Brother Rice hockey team, earning MHSAA championship medals right along with the big-name seniors on that squad.
But this was their team and their moment to shine. For the four seniors who are holdovers from that team, there was a deeper sense of accomplishment after beating Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern/Eastern, 7-0, to win the MHSAA Division 2 championship Saturday at USA Hockey Arena.
It was the fourth MHSAA championship for the Warriors (25-4-1), who won titles in 1992, 2012 and 2015. Jack Clement, Alec DeLuca, Michael McInerney and Mitch Shults are the holdovers from Brother Rice’s 2015 Division 2 championship team. They join 2015 graduate Nick Rosa as the only Warriors to play for two MHSAA title winners.
Shults had 14 points, Clement 13, DeLuca 12 and McInerney nine as sophomores. They all scored at least 30 as seniors.
“It definitely feels different,” said Clement, who had a goal and an assist Saturday. “As seniors, we helped lead this team. As sophomores, we were kind of behind the scenes a little bit more. Now to lead the way for these guys is really special.”
Shults had a goal and set up two others after dishing out three assists in a 5-2 Semifinal victory over No. 2 Hartland, the team that came from behind to oust Brother Rice, 5-4, in overtime last season.
“Those seniors our sophomore year really showed us what it takes to win a state championship,” Shults said. “Coming off what happened last year, obviously we had a bad taste in our mouth. We came back with the mentality of nothing less than a state championship.”
And it was time for the 2014-15 sophomores to be the leaders in 2016-17.
“We knew after last year that all the guys would be looking toward us,” DeLuca said. “We knew what to do. We knew what it took. It was really special being seniors. It was an unbelievable feeling.”
Northern/Eastern (20-9-2) was playing in its first Final, having lost in the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Semifinals. A 5-2 loss to eventual champion Romeo in last year’s Semifinals fueled this year’s run to the championship game.
“That gave us motivation to go into the summer,” Northern/Eastern senior Wyatt Radakovitz said. “The two of us (Radakovitz and Matt Pakkala) got the whole team together. We started workouts right when summer started, getting out there at 6 a.m., hitting the weight room and everything. Everyone had that gut and passion to get back to the Finals.”
Brother Rice was ranked No. 1 across all three divisions by Michigan High School Hockey Hub, while Northern/Eastern was unranked, but the first period ended scoreless.
After dominating the shot board with a 10-4 advantage, the Warriors established control on the scoreboard with three goals during the first 5:41 of the second period.
Clement got it started 60 seconds into the period, pinching from his position on defense to backhand a shot past Brenden Bogema.
Brother Rice created some distance when Shults scored off a faceoff at 4:31 of the second and Will Duncan converted a pass from across the crease by Shults 1:10 later to make it 3-0.
“It’s contagious for them,” first-year Brother Rice head coach Kenny Chaput said. “Once they get into that mode, it’s very tough to stop them.”
Radakovitz had a chance to get Northern/Eastern back in the game while killing a penalty, but he fired wide right on a breakaway with 14:58 left in the game.
“That gets it to 3-1 and you never know what happens,” Northern/Eastern coach Tom Bissett said.
From there, the Warriors turned it into a rout with four goals in a 6:27 span.
Garrett Moore scored two goals, Jack Reinhart scored while Brother Rice was down two men and DeLuca also had a shorthanded goal.
Ryan Hoffmann made 25 saves for the shutout, the fifth in a Division 2 Final and first since 2008.
“To be honest, and no disrespect to any team we played this year, but I knew with the cast of characters we had that if we went out and played our game, we would be the best team on the ice,” Chaput said. “I had that feeling from day one, and I never lost it. I understood the talent level we had, but I also understood the competitive nature.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Brother Rice skaters surround Northern/Eastern goalie Brenden Bogema during Saturday’s Division 2 Final. (Middle) Brother Rice’s Mitch Shults (9) celebrates a goal. (Photos by Andrew Knapik Photography.)
Hockey Team Becomes Romeo's Next Champ
March 12, 2016
By Bill Khan
Special for Second Half
PLYMOUTH — The students in the large Romeo cheering section might have been nervous.
Some of his teammates might have been getting nervous too.
Nolan Kare, however, couldn't allow himself to give in to the natural human reaction as the MHSAA Division 2 hockey championship appeared to be slipping away from the Bulldogs' grasp.
After scoring three straight goals during a frantic 5:02 stretch of the second period, a seasoned Livonia Stevenson squad held a 4-2 lead over a Romeo team that had never played on the biggest stage in Michigan high school hockey.
Kare stopped the last 11 shots he faced over the final 22 minutes and 21 seconds, backstopping Romeo to a 6-4 come-from-behind victory over Stevenson on Saturday at USA Hockey Arena.
"I know we kind of let up a little bit, but our team has so much heart," Kare said. "I know that if I just make the saves I'm supposed to make and try to rob a few that our team is going to give us the best chance to win. I know if I'm doing that, then I'm going to give them the best opportunity to put us in a position to get back."
Senior star Logan Jenuwine's tip-in goal during a five-minute power play with 10:21 left in the game snapped a 4-4 tie. Steven Morris scored an empty-net goal with 29.1 seconds left to seal the first MHSAA hockey title in the 15-year history of the Romeo program.
Suddenly, a school that had no MHSAA team championships going into the 2014-15 school year has three over the past 16 months. It began with the volleyball team winning the 2014 Class A championship and continued when the football team upset Detroit Cass Tech in the 2015 Division 1 title game at Ford Field.
"Before the game, we were saying if the football team could beat Cass Tech with 20 Division I (college) players coming up, we could beat Livonia Stevenson," Romeo senior forward Nick Blankenburg said. "Shocking the world and being part of such a great team feels incredible. To win a state championship for our school, to get those rings like our football team and volleyball team, I'll remember this my entire life."
Like the football and volleyball teams, the hockey team benefitted from a huge outpouring of support in a matchup that was witnessed by two passionate and energized fan bases.
"There's just something special about Romeo," said Kare, who finished with 29 saves and led the state with all 27 of Romeo's victories. "It's a small-town feel. You could see it out there. The entire town's out there for us. Just like football, just like volleyball, we had the whole community behind our back. We're just unbelievably blessed to have the best fan base, the best family, the best support out of anybody."
The atmosphere in which the Romeo and Stevenson players competed is one of the things that sets high school hockey apart from its competitors. Senior forward Ben Kowalske, who played in three MHSAA Finals for the Spartans, said neighbors will stop him and congratulate him on how the team is performing. Kowalske is the lone holdover from Stevenson's 2013 MHSAA Division 2 championship team and is a member of the MHSAA's Student Advisory Council.
"Being on the Council, you learn ideas and what other schools do," Kowalske said. "It's really amazing people are so interested in what we're doing. To have everyone come out to the game really means the world and really means a lot to us that we're doing something right here. You saw Romeo, too. They had the city support. It's cool. You try not to let it distract you during the game, but now that it's over, it's cool. It wasn't the outcome we wanted, but we did the best we could. It's really cool the community could come together over something and just forget about the world for a couple hours and just have fun."
A defensive battle that was tied 1-1 for the first 23 minutes changed in a hurry as the second period neared its midway point.
Romeo (27-2-1) grabbed a 2-1 lead at 6:18 of the second period on a goal by Jenuwine, but that only served to wake up the Spartans.
As Jenuwine's goal was being announced, Nick Beers scored the equalizer for the Spartans just 19 seconds later. Stevenson took its first lead 44 seconds later on a goal by Shane Leonard. Riding the crest of that momentum, the Spartans built their lead to 4-2 at the 11:39 mark on a goal by Nate Sudek.
With the game possibly slipping away, Romeo coach Nick Badder called what proved to be a critical timeout.
"We were down, they had all the momentum," Badder said. "I was telling (Adam) Krefski and the other assistants, 'Right now, they have all the momentum. We're on our heels, and we felt it. We calmed down the boys. Once they calmed down and realized it was shift by shift, we kind of took over."
Romeo got right back into the game before the second period ended, getting within 4-3 on Brett Lanski's second goal of the game with 2:34 left in the period and tying it when Luke Kaczor tipped in a shot from the point by Logan Ganfield with 1:30 to go in the period. Between the teams, six goals were scored during a 9:13 span.
Romeo was presented with a golden opportunity to break the tie when a Stevenson player received a five-minute major and game disqualification at 4:38 of the third period.
A power play that featured the highest-scoring player in the state wasn't going to miss over the course of five minutes. Jenuwine, who had 46 goals and 50 assists this season, scored what proved to be the game-winner at the 5:39 mark when he redirected a shot from the right point by Ganfield.
"It was going wide," said Jenuwine, who had two goals and three assists. "That's what I've been trying to work on mostly is get to the front of the net. I'm not really a guy to get to the front of the net; I did. It was a good shot by Logan Ganfield, and I got a tip on it."
Stevenson coach David Mitchell didn't blame the penalty for the loss.
"To say it turned there, it turned because they capitalized," Mitchell said. "They still had to capitalize, so you give them credit for capitalizing. We still had multiple chances to score and they had multiple chances to score. As a coach, it's so tough to explain to a bunch of 15-, 16-, 17-year-old kids that it's not one moment, it's an entire game. There were 51 minutes that were played out there where multiple other things happened."
Stevenson (22-7-1) had three offensive-zone face-offs in the final 1:25, but couldn't generate a scoring threat.
There might have been another had Morris' shot from inside his own blue line missed the target, but he found the center of the net for the game-clinching empty-netter with 29.1 seconds to go. For good measure, Morris blocked a shot in the final seconds.
Before Saturday, the Bulldogs' only playoff run beyond the Regionals came last season when they lost 8-2 to Grosse Pointe South in the MHSAA Quarterfinals.
"Last year's loss in the playoffs hurt," Badder said. "Grosse Pointe South took it to us; they kind of owned us. We didn't have a playoff game plan; we didn't have a playoff style last year. This year, I was so hard on these guys. We lost two games, and I was still, 'Guys, we're not doing this right, we're not doing that right.' They're like, 'Coach, we just won 6-1.' I was trying to get a point across to them that you've got to be a playoff team. You have to hit. You've got to block shots. You've got to get the puck in your own end. It's not the high-flying (Blankenburg) and (Jenuwine) show. We're a team, and the team will win in the end."
PHOTOS: (Top) Romeo players raise their first MHSAA championship trophy to the crowd after Saturday’s Division 2 Final. (Middle) Romeo’s Steven Morris (36) and Stevenson’s Sam Judd work to gain possession of the puck. (Click for more from Andrew Knapik.)