Conard wins first title since 1996
HAMDEN – Two years ago, the Conard hockey team was here on the ice at Quinnipiac for the Division III championship game. The Red Wolves had a bit of a rough season that ended with a magical run through the playoffs, but it wasn’t meant to be that year and they lost to Newington in the final.
Last year, they made it to the state semifinals. This year, they would make it a step further, then the ultimate step further Thursday night. Conard won its first state title since 1996, beating the top-seeded Brookfield-bethel-danbury-immaculate co-op, 4-1, for the Division III championship.
Aiden Emery, one of 10 seniors on the team, scored two goals, one on a penalty shot, to lead Conard (22-2-1) to its third title (1985, 1996).
“It’s all relief at this point,” Conard coach Jason Olson said. “This group deserves it so much. They really fought two seasons ago, then last year had a great run. This year, they’ve just been excellent. I felt so much pressure to make sure we got this done because this group is so deserving of it.
“I’m relieved, I’m ecstatic, the boys are ecstatic. They deserve every bit of this feeling.”
Two years ago, Olson said,
was more of a “storybook” type of year. The senior leadership and commitment that emerged midway through the season trickled down to the younger players who became the seniors on this year’s team.
“We were an average team, just barely over .500,” Olson said of the 2022 group. “We had a group of seniors who were great and they decided to turn things around. They just created a better environment and this group fed off that and kept it going and each year we seemed to add more and more skill coming in. Whatever’s happening at the youth level, they need to keep it up. It’s made my life so much easier.
“Coming into this year,
we had high expectations. We could honestly say if we didn’t win it all, we felt like a bust. We wanted it all. We knew this group could do it.”
Conard scored early Thursday. Junior Brady Naurus, who missed part of the season with an injury, came back and got the first goal 5:46 into the game. Three minutes later, junior Luke Shaffer made it 2-0.
“We talk about that, get a quick start, put all the pressure on them,” Olson said. “You score the first one and you can start to loosen up and play a little bit and let them get tight and stressed. We did a good job with that.”
Emery scored the next two goals. His first came
with 5:23 left in the second period. BBDI got on the board with a goal by Jovannie Smeriglio then a little over a minute into the third period, Emery connected on a penalty shot.
Emery was there the last time Conard was at Quinnipiac for the final.
“It’s unbelievable,” he said. “We’ve had this crew for three years now. It started with that senior group back then. We always had great leadership. Everybody’s committed, everybody wants it.
“At the end of it, we know what it’s like to watch the other team throw their gloves, we know how terrible that feels. It fueled us. The commitment and effort was off the charts tonight.”