CLIPPER CLINCH
Cumberland clinches D-II title with 1-0 win over PSW
Cumberland High School won the Rhode Island Interscholastic League Division II championship on Monday at Brown University’s Meehan Auditorium, defeating the PSW co-op team 1-0 in the third game of the championship series. The winning goal was scored by junior Domenic Rousseau at 5:22 in the second period.
PROVIDENCE — Milliseconds after Cumberland High had sealed a wild, tense 1-0 victory over the Providence Country Day/St. Raphael/Wheeler Coop squad in the rubber match of the R.I. Division II Tournament championship final at Brown University, veteran mentor Mark Andreozzi hugged his assistants, then made his way out onto the Meehan Auditorium ice.
There, he embraced senior Steve Ciolino and a few other Clippers, then made his way back to the team bench. He immediately called for his wife, Maria, and asked her to pass his two young boys – Giuseppe, 5, and Anthony, 3 – over the glass so they could partake in his squad’s first state championship since 2014.
“I told her, ‘Pass down the boys!’ Why? They’re my boys!” Andreozzi gushed after accepting with his senior co-captains Sean Meers and Jackson Shevlin the coveted team plaque. “They were younger when I won my first two, and they really couldn’t appreciate the moment. Now that they’re older, I wanted to make sure they could appreciate this one.
“I also wanted them to be a part of it,” he continued. “We’re one big family, mine and the guys and my (assistants). These boys have 22 big brothers in that locker room, and they have two little brothers and a little sister, so we’re one big family. You can see it in the way we play and what we do. We’re just together; there’s no quit in this team.
“I have to say, God, this is so special.”
Sophomore netminder Jack Byrne received the Monsignor Robert C. Newbold Memorial Most Valuable Player Award after pushing away all 21 shots he faced in the set’s third and final game; in fact, he had to make a whopping 14 in the final session alone.
“That was quite the rally they had,” Byrne stated. “There was a lot of noise out there, a lot of people looking at you, so you just have to stay focused on what’s happening. It felt like a movie, and I can’t believe this happened this way.. I’m so proud of each and every one of (my teammates). None of this would’ve happened if not for them.
“(As for being selected the MVP), towards the end of the game, maybe I thought about it a little bit, but I thought it would have gone to one of our offensive players, honestly. I will say this wasn’t my best hockey, but I just tried to make sure I left everything I had out on the ice.”
There’s no question he did that, and here’s why:
The Clippers were guarding their one-goal cushion (Rousseau collected the game-winning goal just 4:22 into the second period) early in the third when officials whistled junior Jordan Cullion for a cross-check at 11:59.
That could have given Andreozzi and his staff a hemorrhage, but Shevlin, classmate John Mello and junior Keith Sisson did a spectacular job of icing the puck and killing it off.
The only problem: Sixteen seconds after that initial PSW power play, Meers took a tripping call and skated off to the box.
With 9:25 left in regulation, PSW senior standout Ben Kaihler unleashed a furious shot at Byrne, which he stopped, but PCD junior quad-captain Bennett Hicks pounced on the rebound and flipped a backhand at net, yet the goalie responded again.
Amazingly, third-ranked PSW (178-0 overall) gave one back when referees caught a “too many men on the ice” infraction at the 8:15 mark, giving Cumberland 88 seconds of a man advantage beginning with 7:25 remaining.
The Knights avoided any trouble there, then received another gift from the Clippers. With 5:38 on the scoreboard clock, Sisson was in the penalty “suite” for a five-minute head-butting major against the keeper, sophomore Jeff Pimental, though it appeared an opponent may have pushed the former into him.
At the 3:27 mark, SRA junior associate captain Drew Andella rifled a wrister from the far-left circle at Byrne, who closed his pads just in time for the save, and that’s when PSW head coach Kevin Sullivan called a timeout.
He put on the ice his top line of quad-captains Nolan Carlson, Bennett Hicks, Kaihler, Mike Barone and Cam Yee, and they (and others) peppered Byrne with numerous shots. With 2:57 left, Kaihler delivered a quick snapper from the slot with the netminder down, but he sprawled for the stop.
Kaihler had another chance with 1:26 remaining from atop the right circle, though Byrne made a tremendous pad save.
Finally, with just 7.6 ticks left, Hicks grabbed a loose puck, glided left-to-right across the crease and roped a wrister from point-blank range at the net. Byrne, however, made a crazy block to nail down the triumph.
To be fair, Pimental easily could have captured the MVP Award, closing with 32 saves on Monday evening and an incredible 128 in the trio of tilts.
Following a “feeling-out” kind of first period, Cumberland finally broke the scoreless tie with 4:22 elapsed in the middle session. Senior winger Steve Ciolino had fed senior co-captain Sean Meers at the left point, and he promptly smoked a slapper at SRA sophomore Jeff Pimental.
The thing is, it never got to him. Junior defenseman Dom Rousseau some- how managed to get his stick on it in the low slow, and the deflection soared past the keeper and into the cage for the 1-0 lead.
Just three minutes before, it appeared the Clippers already had notched their first goal of the contest, when an unknown player chipped a backhand past Pimental’s right pad.
One of the refs, however, immediately disallowed the tally, despite the fact it looked as if the entire puck had crossed the goal line (at least from inside the blue line from high above in the press box).
“We knew if we played a good 45 minutes, we’d like our chances,” Shevlin offered while his teammates celebrated in the distance. “We just had to stay out of the box, which we didn’t do (in the third). We’re a tough team to beat five-on-five, and there’s a lot of belief in all of us, a lot of trust.
“Now we’re the state champs, and it feels awesome!”