‘The boys left it all there’
Reds leave the ice with their heads held high after losing to Nos. 1 and 2 seeds
It wasn’t déjà vu all over again for the Denis Morris Reds at the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations (OFSAA) boys hockey championship.
Yes, they advanced to the semifinals, just like last year, and, yes, the triple A school from St. Catharines lost the bronze medal to finish fourth in a field of 16, just the same as 2017.
However, the Reds didn’t “implode” in their final game, as they did last year when they allowed six unanswered goals in a 6-2 loss in the bronze medal game.
Instead Denis Morris, the ninth seed as the host team at this year’s tournament, left everything on the ice Friday afternoon, dropping a 2-1 decision to Oakville Holy Cross in the thirdplace final.
“We wouldn’t expect anything less from them. I said yesterday ‘We don’t like to lose, we don’t expect to lose,’” head coach Billy McLaren said after the Reds finished the tournament held at Seymour-Hannah Sports and Entertainment Centre with a 4-2 record.
A 4-1 loss to No. 1 seed Brooklin from Durham Region in the semifinal round Friday morning relegated Denis Morris to play thirdseeded Holy Trinity for the bronze.
The Reds went undefeated in pool play — Barrie Eastview, 4-1; London A.B. Lucas, 3-1; Toronto Malvern, 3-2 — before tripling Toronto Malvern 3-1 in the quarter-finals.
McLaren wasn’t disappointed settling for antique bronze given the calibre of the competition on the final day of the three-day tournament.
“At some point, when you face competition like we did today, it’s going to happen, and the boys left it all there.”
The experienced of playing must-win hockey against some of the top triple A teams in the province can only help a young Denis Morris squad going forward. As many as 18 players from this year’s 24-man roster is eligible to return for another season.
“Down the road it’s going to be huge,” McLaren said.
“Stuff like this, the intensity and the emotion you saw last night (in the quarter-finals) that’s to grab for.
“If we asked this team at the beginning of the year if they were going to play in a medal game, they all would have said ‘no.’ We brought ourselves here through hard work and determination.”
Team captain Joey Colusardo was a workhorse on defence. During provincials he averaged 35 minutes per game, a number all the more impressive given games in high school hockey consist of three, 15-minute periods.
“Even one of the guys from the (school) board office said ‘Your centreman, No. 10, is one of the best players out there,’” McLaren said. “He thought he was a forward because he’s up and down faster than anyone else.
“You can’t lean on anybody more than we leaned on him.”
The Grade 12 student isn’t expected to return for another season in high school. McLaren expects Colusardo to be playing junior B or in the Ontario Junior Hockey League.
“He’s small but he may get an offer in the States because he’s a smart kid, too.”
Denis Morris didn’t feel pressure as the host team. Rather the Reds used it as incentive to show that their loss to Lakeshore Catholic in the Southern Ontario Secondary Schools Association (SOSSA) semifinals was an aberration.
“You lose the SOSSA game and you’re relegated as host and everybody thinks, ‘How did they get such a high ranking as No. 9 when they lost their SOSSA game,” McLaren said.
“It equals one bad game a year, and it happened to be at SOSSA.”
Waterdown beat Lakeshore in the SOSSA final and went on to represent the region at provincials.
In all, three high school teams from Niagara competed at provincial hockey championships this week. The St. Francis Phoenix went 1-2-1 and placed fourth in their pool and failed to advance at the double A boys tournament in Collingwood, while the Blessed Trinity Thunder went 1-2 and finished third in their pool at the triple A girls championships in Cambridge.