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03/22/2015 12:00 AMThe North Branford boys’ ice hockey team pulled off a thrilling double overtime victory to reach its first state championship contest in program history with a showdown versus Suffield-Granby-Windsor Locks. However, the T-Birds couldn’t quite cap off their season with the crown as North Branford took a 4-1 defeat to the Wildcats in the Division II final at New Haven’s Ingalls Rink on March 21. Senior captain Alec Martone netted the lone goal late for North Branford, which finished its campaign with a record of 17-7-1.
“I think they stuck to their same game-plan that they’ve been executing. They’re a very well-coached, a very disciplined team, and they run a nice forecheck,” said T-Birds' Head Coach Ralph Shaw of Suffield-Granby-Windsor Locks. “They stuck to their game-plan and they just took care of business and we fell short.”
No. 2 seed S-G-WL (19-5) was strong in every aspect on the ice as the Wildcats limited what 4th-seeded North Branford did on the offensive end and chipped in with timely goals to take the Thunderbirds out of the game. Martone took a penalty with just under four minutes to go in the first and Jake Bourdeau capitalized on the man-advantage with 2:40 left in the period. Brendan Looney and Colin MacDougald cycled the puck in the corner and Looney fired a pass out in front, which Bourdeau sent home.
Both squads came out firing in the second period, but just 2:37 into the frame, there was a scoreboard malfunction that curtailed the flow of the contest. The board lost power and needed to be reset. It took about 10 minutes to do so, yet the clock still didn’t work when played resumed play, and so both teams had to keep tabs of the time on the bench.
“If anything, I thought it gave us a little rest that we needed,” Shaw said of the break. “It was funny because the guys at the CIAC were like, ‘We can manage time here,’ but I was like, ‘I can’t manage time on my bench.’ But it worked out and we kept time on a phone.”
When play resumed, Wildcats’ goalie Shane Kertanis made two spectacular saves to keep North Branford off the score sheet. Junior forwards Adam Burkle and Dominic Raccio worked together and put a shot on Kertains, who fell into the net while stopping the first shot. After the puck worked its way to junior defenseman Tanner Opie at the point, he fired a blast that Kertains gloved with more than half of his body in the net.
Moments later, the Wildcats scored their second goal of the night. A pass went to Mitch Beilonko out in front and his initial shot was saved by T-Birds’ sophomore keeper Will McEwen (28 saves), but Jake King was there for the rebound and slapped the puck out of midair and in right before the goal came off its bearings to make it 2-0 midway through the frame.
In the third period, North Branford came out with the intensity that you’d expect from a team trailing by two goals. Martone, the T-Birds’ other senior captain Jordan Glenn, plus fellow forwards Burkle, Brian McKee (who had scored the double OT winner in the semis), and Mike Pantera all put shots on Kertanis, yet to no avail.
“We didn’t get a lot of shots, so that was something we were focusing on doing, but we didn’t get the job done,” said Shaw, whose club had defeated S-G-WL 3-0 in the regular season. “As a goalie, the longer you play through the game without really being tested, the stronger your confidence grows. We didn’t test him enough early on in the game to kind of have anything that would turn in our favor.”
After Kertains (23 saves) gave the Wildcats more momentum, Bourdeau scored again to all but put the game away at 3-0. Looney put a pass out in front from behind the net and Bourdeau one-timed it home with 5:24 to play.
As the game wound down, the Wildcats took a penalty and Shaw decided to pull McEwen to give North Branford a 6-on-4 advantage. Just 20 seconds in, however, King got the puck at the blue line and scored shorthanded on the empty net for a 4-0 advantage with 4:01 to remaining.
With McEwen back in net, the Thunderbirds scored their lone goal 33 seconds later when Martone deflected one past Kertanis on the power play. McKee fed Burkle, who rifled a shot from the point that Martone redirected into the net.
North Branford had a chance to net a second goal, but it never quite materialized, and the Thunderbirds left Ingalls Rink as the Division II runner-up while Wildcats celebrated their third state title in program history.
“They have depth and, if you’re not watching out for King, you have to watch out for those other guys,” Shaw said. “They’re all good teams here when you get to this point of the season. They’re going to play hard and I think we left everything out on the ice. We just fell short.”
Previously against Conard in the semifinals, the Thunderbirds needed double overtime to advance and did so on sophomore McKee’s power play goal. In the state tournament, the first overtime period is played 5-on-5 and the second OT is 4-on-4. While on a 4-on-3 power play, junior Burkle passed to McKee on an odd-man rush and McKee buried the shot to send the T-Birds to the final. McKee had previously scored in regulation and Pantera, a junior, and senior defenseman Chris Russo were North Branford’s other goal scorers in the semifinal triumph. Top-seeded Conard finished 16-7.
“The energy on the ice was great. It was a classic Division II matchup and semifinal game. We moved the puck out of our defensive zone, it was a 2-on-1, Burkle made a beautiful cutback pass, and Brian McKee finished it. It was phenomenal,” Coach Shaw said. “It’s just wonderful. To have that kind of tension and pressure and to cap it off was just phenomenal. Guys surrounded him and dragged him down. It was a high for days. It was unbelievable.”