Senior Standout, Surging Sophomore Bring Brother Rice Back in D2 Finale
March 11, 2023
PLYMOUTH — Kenny Chaput, hockey coach at Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice, paused when trying to describe his relationship with sophomore forward Roman Villaire.
“Him and I have had about a year and a half of … fun,” Chaput said.
Care to elaborate?
“We’ve had our ups and downs as far as getting on him,” Chaput said. “He’s literally been all over our lineup from the first line to the fourth line and threats of playing JV hockey and everything else around the way. Again, it’s because the talent’s there.”
The talent Chaput believed Villaire possesses blossomed in the playoffs and burst through at precisely the right moment for the Warriors in the MHSAA Division 2 championship game Saturday at USA Hockey Arena.
Villaire scored what proved to be the winning goal in a 4-2 victory over top-ranked Byron Center with a great individual play.
He picked up the puck at the Rice blue line, skated one-on-one against a defender, made a quick move to open up a shooting lane and fired the puck into the upper right corner of the net with 4:42 left in the game to break a 2-2 tie.
“I just saw (the defenseman) go down to one knee, saw I had a shot, took it to the middle and just put it top right,” Villaire said.
Coming into the playoffs, Villaire had enjoyed a decent regular season, but wasn’t one of the Warriors’ impact players. He had three goals and eight assists in 26 regular-season games, but scored four goals with five assists in five postseason contests.
“That’s not a grinder goal right there,” Chaput said. “That’s a skilled kid who can really bring the offense. He’s had to learn the other things around the game — playing harder, playing more defensive, and he’s done it. It’s a great thing to see how the game really ended with that goal, because he came a long way to get there.”
While Villaire became an unlikely hero during the Warriors’ run to their seventh MHSAA championship, star forward Peter Rosa performed like the elite player he is.
Byron Center took a 2-0 lead into the third period on first-period goals by Logan Nickolaus and Cade Pratt before Rosa scored three of the Warriors’ four unanswered goals.
He began the comeback with a shorthanded breakaway goal at 1:37 of the third and tied the game with a shot off a faceoff win by Jack Cassidy at 10:42.
After Villaire gave Rice the lead, Rosa completed his hat trick and secured the championship by scoring into an empty net with 20.7 seconds remaining.
“We won sophomore year,” said Rosa, who turned down an offer to play juniors in the North American Hockey League to finish his career at Rice. “A couple of us like (Andrew) Marone and Cassidy were together for that championship. We lost in the semis last year. Marone was hurt, so that didn’t help us out.
“In the locker room, we have a back wall that’s full of banners. There’s one bottom corner that’s empty. Every day we came to practice, we said, ‘That’s our spot.’ It’s great to finish on top.”
For Byron Center, it was the second gut-wrenching loss to Rice in the championship game over the last three seasons. The Bulldogs lost 2-1 two years ago when Rice’s Alex Hamady scored with 6.7 seconds to play.
In those two seasons, Byron Center took a combined record of 46-1 into the championship games. The Bulldogs were 28-1 going into Saturday’s matchup.
“It’s a lot of heart and hard work,” said senior Byron Center goalie Carson MacKenzie, the starter in both championship games. “Coming to the rink every day, seeing these guys I’ll never forget. I just hope the future years the underclassmen are going to see how hard we work. I’m so proud of everyone, just stuff we’ve done. I’ve never lost a Regional championship. It’s crazy accomplishments I can be so thankful for. I’m happy to be here right now with my teammates.”
First-year Byron Center coach Jordan Steger, an assistant coach the previous three seasons, told his players the bonds they’ve formed are more valuable than the outcome of one hockey game.
“From day one, it’s been a family,” Steger said. “Like I just reiterated to the guys in the locker room, that doesn’t stop because the season’s over. There were 26 of us this year, three coaches and 23 boys, and that family doesn’t stop because the season’s over. We’ll always be there for each other, not just at the rink, but like I told these young men, a lot of them will be in each other’s weddings and get to know each other’s kids. That means so, so, so, so much more than even a state championship.
“Getting to know these young men has been far more of a gift than a state championship.”
PHOTOS (Top) Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice’s Roman Villaire (8) finds the top corner of the net for what became the winning goal in Saturday’s Division 2 Final. (Middle) The Warriors celebrate their second championship in three seasons.
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.)