Broncos excited to be back in semifinals
Burrillville faces No. 1 Prout at Schneider Arena
BURRILLVILLE — The Burrillville hockey team has been in this position before – flying the public-school flag against three parochial foes in the state semifinals.
The No. 4 Broncos aren’t shying away from the opportunity and the reality that awaits them Friday night at 5:30 when they take on top-seeded Prout at Providence College’s Schneider Arena.
“It feels really good to be here and we’re trying to make it to the state championship for all the public schools,” Burrillville junior defenseman Cam Potter said prior to Wednesday night’s practice at Levy Rink. “We want to show that private schools aren’t everything and we want to make the best of our opportunity. At the beginning of the year our goal was to make it to PC and now we want to make the most of it.”
“This is an unbelievable opportunity,” senior captain Ryan Frenette said. “The way we played in the quarterfinals against Barrington shows us that we’re ready for them.”
Burrillville has been to the state semifinals four times in the last 12 years, but the three previous visits ended in sweeps to either Bishop Hendricken or La Salle. The most recent mythical public-school state title season came in 2021 when Barrington had to forfeit in the quarterfinals because of COVID and the Broncos went on to lose to eventual co-state champion Hendricken in the semifinals.
This season, however, there is no best-of-three series – there’s only one game for the right to play in next Sunday’s state title game against either No. 2 Bishop Hendricken or No. 3 La Salle.
Both teams come into Friday’s game after impressive sweeps in the quarterfinals. The Broncos appear to be playing their best hockey of the season after senior forward Stevie Rodrigues scored four times and assisted on two other goals in a sweep of Barrington. The Broncos also received superb efforts from goalie Michael Fiyod and defenseman Cam Force.
“There’s always room for improvement, but our key guys showed up over the weekend,” Burrillville coach David Farrell said. “Maybe not all of them, but our key guys played well. There’s also things behind the scenes that aren’t on the scoresheet that guys are doing to help this team win, too. We weren’t easy to score and we kept their chances to the outside. We were solid, but we need to be a little better.”
During the 16-game regular-season Rodrigues, led the Broncos with 15 goals and 24 points, while junior Patrick Murphy chipped in with 14 goals and 20 points. Force led the way from the blue line with a teamhigh 13 assists and 20 points. In net, Fiyod posted a .916 save percentage and allowed just over two goals a game. He only allowed three goals in the quarterfinals.
The Broncos and Crusaders only met once this season and the contest came less than 24 hours after the Crusaders stunned Hendricken, 4-2, to move into pole position for the No. 1 seed. Ethan Murphy and Nick Carey created a chance for Potter to finish to give Burrillville the lead in the second period at Boss Arena.
One of the state’s top players, Prout senior forward Aidan Forcier, helped tie the game with 13 seconds left when he found Aidan Burnett for a goal. Burnett won the game 48 seconds into overtime.
Even though Farrell said there’s not much to glean from a game played nearly two months ago, the Broncos still learned plenty of valuable lessons. The biggest being Prout goalie Angelo Evangelista isn’t going to give up easy goals and the Broncos are going to have to work hard to score.
Evangelista allowed just .95 goals a contest during the regular season with a save percentage of 96.2.
“They have a good goalie, so we need to get pucks to the net and try to create rebounds,” Frenette said. “That’s how we’re going to score goals. We also need to get pucks deep and make them go 200 feet to beat us.”
Prout, which is playing in its first state semifinals after falling to Cumberland in last season’s quarterfinals, has plenty of scoring punch, too. Forcier led the team in goals (18), assists (15) and points (33), while Burnett (12-6-18), Liam McIntosh (7-8-15), Mason Keramidas (5-914), Tyler Simno (2-11-13), Derek Gesmondi (6-6-12) and Riley Smith (4-7-11) all scored at least 11 points.
“They have a really good goalie and a lot of good goal scorers,” Potter said. “We are going to have to try and score dirty goals if we want to win this series. We’re playing the most consistent hockey we’ve played all season and everyone is focused because we’re in the playoffs.”