This Time, It's DCC in Division 1
March 8, 2014
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
PLYMOUTH – Detroit Catholic Central had one way in mind it hoped to finish this season’s MHSAA Hockey Finals at Compuware Arena.
And the Shamrocks had one opponent in mind to end against.
DCC wanted a rematch with Brighton, the two-time Division 1 champion and opponent that kept the Shamrocks from the title a year ago.
They got their wish – and their first MHSAA title since 2010 – with a 5-1 win over the Bulldogs in Saturday’s final championship game.
“We came in and we wanted to play Brighton,” DCC senior defenseman Carter Cerretani said. “We know we didn’t have the biggest team. But we definitely had the fastest, and we had to utilize that speed. Going in, we knew the crowd was going to be big. But we had to act like it was any normal game.”
Detroit Catholic Central (24-7) already had beaten Brighton once this season, 4-3 in the former’s second game and the latter’s opener this winter.
But the Shamrocks wanted a rematch where it counted most after falling 2-1 in the 2013 Final.
They dominated at the start, with junior Ryan Burnett and then Cerretani (off a Burnett assist) both scoring during the game’s first five minutes. Then DCC dominated on the check, frustrating the Bulldogs’ offense and allowing only 19 shots after giving up exactly twice that many in last season’s championship game.
“We had a handful of boys in the locker room who remembered that feeling,” said first-year DCC coach Doug Itami, who formerly served as an assistant. “We had a purpose.”
And the Shamrocks also capitalized when Brighton provided opportunities, scoring three power play goals and a fourth into an empty net with 2:32 to play. One of those power play goals came with a 5-on-3 advantage and another came just after another 5-on-3 ran out but before the Bulldogs had killed the second penalty.
Still, Brighton did have hope after senior Danny Bosio scored off a rebound on a power play 5:48 into the second period to make the score 2-1. The Bulldogs also had trailed Detroit U-D Jesuit 2-0 in the Semifinal before coming back to win 4-3 in overtime.
“We love to go down 2-nothing and then come back,” said Brighton coach Paul Moggach, tongue-in-cheek. “We’ve got the same attitude that we can come back. When we got that first goal, we thought we had momentum. But we didn’t sustain it the way we needed to.”
Senior Domenic Mancinelli put DCC up 3-1 with five minutes left in the second period, and then Cerretani and Burnett both added their second goals of the game to round out the scoring in the third.
Junior Mitch Ossowski assisted on three of the Shamrocks’ goals, and junior Spencer Wright allowed just the one, with 17 saves in goal. In a touching moment at the end, the trophy was presented on the ice to senior Matt Sorisho, a standout on last season’s team who was paralyzed from the waist down during a travel league game this fall.
Junior goalie Jimmy Milletics, another star of the 2013 Final, made 27 saves for the Bulldogs, who finished 23-7-1 but graduate a strong group of nine seniors who have played big parts over the last two seasons.
“It’s a loss in the biggest game of the season, and it’s not fun losing like that,” Brighton senior Aaron Sturos said. “Just being on this team, this is a heck of a team. We’re all really close, having fun out there, so it will be tough to leave.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Detroit Catholic Central celebrates one of its five goals Saturday in the Division 1 Final. (Middle) DCC athletic director Aaron Babicz presents the championship trophy to senior Matt Sorisho (18).
HIGHLIGHTS: (1) DCC’s Ryan Burnett gets the first goal of the Division 1 Final at the 3:54 mark of the opening period. (2) With a two-man advantage on a power play, Detroit Catholic Central gets its second goal of the finale from Carter Cerretani. (3) The Bulldogs got their only goal on the power play at the 5:48 mark of the second period from Danny Bosio. (4) About 6 minutes later, DCC counters with another power play goal by Domenic Mancinelli to take a 3-1 lead.
Performance: Stevenson's Seth Lause
January 9, 2020
Seth Lause
Livonia Stevenson senior – Hockey
The four-year varsity center accomplished one of the rarest of hockey feats Saturday against No. 3 Hartland, scoring three short-handed goals in No. 2 Stevenson’s 5-2 win to earn the MHSAA “Performance of the Week.” Although the National Federation of State High School Associations does not keep a record for short-handed goals in one game, it is possible that Lause was only the second player nationally to score three at the high school level, following Lucas DeBenedet of International Falls, Minn., in 2011.
Lause is tied for the team lead in goals this winter with eight and ranks second with 12 assists as Stevenson is off to a 9-1-1 start. He made the Division 2 all-state second team last season with five goals and 12 assists over 19 games. The MHSAA also has not previously tracked a record for short-handed goals in one game – but for added perspective, the feat has been achieved only once in NHL history. Lause’s first goal came in the second period, and his second and third scores came during the same power play over 1 minute, 29 seconds, during the third period.
Stevenson has had one of the state’s strongest programs over the last decade, making at least the Quarterfinals five straight seasons, finishing Division 2 runner-up twice and winning the championship in 2013. After helping his team to another title pursuit, Lause hopes to continue playing at the junior level after graduation in the spring. Whether he begins college later or right away, he’s interested in the medical field and particularly psychology – and carries a 4.4 GPA at Stevenson.
Coach David Mitchell said: "Seth is a tireless worker ... both on the ice and in the classroom. He is an extremely high-character student-athlete that works tirelessly on his craft. It's been a real honor and pleasure to watch him grow as a player, as a person and as a leader. The sky's the limit for Seth with regards to his future. He is for sure leaving his mark on Livonia Stevenson hockey."
Performance Point: “The first goal was just a fortunate bounce. I think one of their guys missed a pass, and I ended up being on a line rush 2-on-1 with my teammate Noah (Turner). I was just looking for a shot on the first one, just trying to go low stick, since he had the low stick kinda showing me a little bit of that, and the rebound just came out to me when I shot it there, and I ended up burying it,” Lause said, describing his three goals. “The second one was (Ian) Kimble had a good play with his stick. He poke-checked it around one of their defensemen, came in, and created space for himself in the zone and saw my flying into the net. And so he threw it down into the corner and I picked it up down low, and I came around the net on my backhand side and I was looking around to see where everyone was at. I kinda looked off the goalie, and the goalie I saw was low and he had the high short side open, and so I flipped it up over and went up on the high far side. And then the third one was just a good play by Adam Heard. I was calling for it. I got behind their D at the far blue and he found me and gave me a great pass on my tape, and I just came in and shot it high glove. Honestly I didn’t even know we were still short-handed on my third goal, but everyone told me after the game that it was still short-handed and I’d scored three shorties, and I thought it was pretty cool. At first … I didn’t realize to scale how big of a deal it was.”
Fueled by fun: “It’s just been fun. Last year, I was more focused on just doing as much as I could to win. I still do now, but I don’t put as much pressure on myself now. It’s just a great thing, since it is my last year, just kinda taking a different approach to it this year and just letting everything go and going out and having a blast. This may or may not be my last moments playing; with my friends and for my high school, obviously this is the last year. It’s just been a lot of fun playing with these guys. I think that’s just been the big difference – me letting go mentally and just having a blast doing it. … I’ve always known there’s been something special (with this team), just every year we’ve been here. But this year especially, it’s been just a lot of guys bought in earlier. It just happens quicker with some teams than others. The approach that we’ve had has just been a lot more relaxed, a lot more fun. This group has really connected with one another, and everything’s just clicking right now.”
Play hard, cheer hard: “We usually go to all the other events that we have (at school). So basketball, swimming, volleyball, other sports – we always attend their games. We try to show support that way by going and trying to create a small student section if you will, the whole hockey team. We go to every sport that we can, even tennis we go to. …. Our coach really takes pride in that too, because for everyone who comes to our games, all the peers who come to our games, he likes to give back to them and say thanks, honestly, just for a support they give us. Without them, it’s totally a different environment.”
Stevenson strong: “We just work hard. Our effort is our floor here. We’ve always prided ourselves on being one of the hardest-working teams, both on and off the ice, also involving ourselves in the community (and) we reach out to a lot of teams. We go to a lot of other team events here at our school. We just put a lot of pride in ourselves and the extra stuff we do. It’s just what makes us, us. We’re very involved in development and trusting the process of development and just being a team that works hard. We really just pride ourselves on that.”
The doctor is in: “Anything medical, I’m really interested in. … I’m mostly focused on the brain. I just love how the brain works. There are other organs like the heart that everyone knows about – we know every single little detail about the heart. But the brain is just something that’s so mysterious that a lot of people haven’t figured out yet. So that’s a thing that intrigues me – what is really going on, and something to just figure out because it’s a developing thing right now.”
– Geoff Kimmerly, Second Half editor
Past honorees
Dec. 5: Mareyohn Hrabowski, River Rouge football - Report
Nov. 28: Kathryn Ackerman, Grand Haven swimming - Report
Nov. 21: Emily Van Dyke, Southfield Christian volleyball - Report
Nov. 14: Taylor Wegener, Ida volleyball - Report
Nov. 7: Carter Solomon, Plymouth cross country - Report
Oct. 31: Jameson Goorman, Muskegon Western Michigan Christian soccer - Report
Oct. 24: Austin Plotkin, Brimley cross country - Report
Oct. 17: Jack Spamer, Brighton cross country - Report
Oct. 10: Kaylee Maat, Hudsonville volleyball - Report
Oct. 3: Emily Paupore, Negaunee cross country - Report
Sept. 26: Josh Mason, South Lyon soccer - Report
Sept. 19: Ariel Chang, Utica Eisenhower golf - Report
Sept. 12: Jordyn Shipps, DeWitt swimming - Report
PHOTOS: (Top) Livonia Stevenson's Seth Lause is a four-year contributor to one of the state's top programs. (Middle) Lause also is serving as a captain this winter. (Photos courtesy of the Livonia Stevenson hockey program.)