La Salle wins APAC title

Explorers hammer rival St. Joe’s Prep for fifth conference championship in six years

La Salle faced rival St. Joseph’s Prep three times this season and won all three games. Through five periods, however, the Hawks outscored the Explorers, 4-3. Over the last four periods, La Salle blanked the Prep, 12-0.

Those 12 straight goals include a five-goal third period to erase a 3-0 deficit on Feb. 14 and a 7-0 win in the Atlantic Prep Athletic Conference championship game Wednesday evening at Hatfield Ice Arena.

The victory gives La Salle its second straight Founders Cup and fifth in six years since joining the APAC.

“This is important,” La Salle forward Michael Zarzycki said. “It’s a step to a lot of goals we have set for the year.”

“Hard work and dedication,” La Salle defenseman William Gregorio credited for the championship. “We knew it was coming, but we’ve got to move forward. Flyers Cup is on the line and our goal is state champions, repeat again. This is great, (but) we’re just going to move forward. Enjoy tonight and then just move forward.”

The Explorers defense set the tone early in the championship game. Less than five minutes into the game, the defending APAC champions were whistled for an interference penalty. On the two-minute penalty kill, La Salle allowed just one shot, which didn’t have a high chance of scoring. Fifty seconds after killing the penalty, Patrick Brace scored what proved to be the game-winning goal. Seventy-two seconds after that, Alexander Fusaro doubled the lead.

“We’re really deep, which is nice, for the penalty kill, power play, everyone is coming out to play,” Gregorio, who blocked a shot and kept the puck out of danger multiple times during the first penalty kill, said. “We get a big kill like that early in the game. It definitely gets us going.”

The Explorers (20-3) were called for four penalties in the game and killed all four, not allowing many legitimate scoring chances across the eight minutes.

After Brace’s wrist shot and Fusaro’s putback put La Salle ahead, 2-0, Zarzycki added another. After La Salle killed another penalty, the Explorers had numbers on a fast break. Two shots were stopped before Zarzycki buried the rebound to make it 3-0.

William Carpenter scored the goal of the game with 70 seconds left in the first period. He took a pass from Grant Lagreca at his own blue line and carried the puck up the right side. He cut to the front of the net when he got to the circles and deked to his