STORRS, Conn. — Avon Old Farms looked down and out.
Two minutes hadn't even gone by in the Elite 8 championship game when Avon Old Farms star goalie Anthony Palmer (Lynnfield, Mass.) gloved down a typical wrister from St. Mark's forward Evan Nee (Arlington, Mass.). Palmer appeared to flash the leather as he often does on glove saves, but went right down and needed help getting up.
He was done. Avon junior goalie Will Bagot (Old Greenwich, Conn.) was thrust into facing the No. 1 offense in prep in No. 2-seeded St. Mark's.
No problem.
No. 8 Avon Old Farms finished its improbable Elite 8 run with a 4-2 win over St. Mark's, securing the school's 10th Stuart/Corkery championship and 11th New England title.
MORE CHAMPIONS: Boys Large School — Cushing beats Brunswick | Boys Small School — Winchendon beats Holderness | Girls Elite 8 — Loomis Chaffee beats Deerfield | Girls Large School — Phillips Exeter beats Choate | Girls Small School — Groton beats New Hampton
While Avon scored the first three goals, the momentum shifted from St. Mark's to the Winged Beavers well before.
Roughly five minutes into the game, while killing a penalty, St. Mark's forward Caiden Pellegrino (Uxbridge, Mass.) rushed it down the ice himself and ended up dishing the puck to Nee in the slot, who had a wide-open net.
But Avon Old Farms junior defenseman Max Yakub got in front of it and made an incredible kick save to keep the game scoreless.
Head coach Mark Naclerio's team potted two in the first period. It started when junior forward Aiden Strzelecki sniped a shot past St. Mark's sophomore goalie Aaron Alves-Thomas (Uxbridge, Mass.) off a turnover at the 9:05 mark.
With under two minutes to play in the first, junior forward Nico Ciardiello (Guilford, Conn.) sniped one from the slot, making it 2-0 Avon.
The Winged Beavers added to their lead early in the second when senior forward Tucker Harris (Ferrisburgh, Vt.) one-timed a shot off a pass from junior forward Grover Henderson.
St. Mark's junior forward Will Manchuso (Concord, Mass.) got the Lions on the board with a shot from the sideboards that ricocheted off an Avon Old Farms stick and in. But the Winged Beavers responded less than a minute later when senior Jacob Jett scored off an offensive zone face-off.
Lions junior forward Cam MacPherson (Hopkinton, Mass.) cut the Avon lead to 4-2 with 46.6 seconds left, but it wasn't enough.
Quick takeaways
1. Bagot saw some time in net in February and lost both games he started in. He was a totally different goalie on Sunday, though. The junior tracked pucks well and made numerous glove stops. St. Mark's spent most of the third period in Avon's end, and Bagot was unfazed. Late in the game, Nee took a one-timer from the point that looked to have eyes, but Bagot somehow got it through traffic and corralled it. That was a game the Old Greenwich, Conn., native will remember for as long as he lives.
2. Something else Avon fans will remember forever: the Yakub save. Just an incredible stop.
3. This win was emblematic of how resilient Avon was throughout the season. In the championship, the Winged Beavers were without top forward Ethan Gingelskie and lost Palmer two minutes in. Yet everybody stepped up. Strzelecki's goal was his first of the season. Ciardiello, Harris and Jett also found the back of the net. Avon players were diving everywhere to block shots. That was the definition of a team effort.
4. Avon was never your typical No. 8 seed. The Winged Beavers were No. 1 in the JSPR for much of the first two months. But rather than most No. 8 seeds getting hot in the final month, they did the complete opposite, going 1-6-2 in their final nine games. Naclerio's ability to rally his troops to take down the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 5 teams in the Elite 8 was remarkable.
5. Henderson was outstanding. The 6-foot-4, 220-pound right wing forechecked St. Mark's defenders hard, finishing every hit and being a pain to play against. He was able to generate quite a bit of speed off the rush, too.
6. Avon as a team played with so much speed. The Winged Beavers were all over St. Mark's puck-carriers to force turnovers and not give up time and space. That was especially true on the forecheck and in defensive zone coverage. Much of St. Mark's offense was generated from the perimeter.
7. St. Mark's felt it got jabbed by the officials in two specific instances. On one, the referees called a borderline icing that Jett scored off the ensuing face-off. The second was Pellegrino scoring a split second after the whistle blew due to the net being off a bit. That was with 16:30 to play in the third period.
8. A big bright spot for St. Mark's was freshman defenseman Logan Cotter. The Marlboro, Mass., native transported pucks with ease and never panicked with pucks. The Lions struggled to generate offense until the third, but Cotter was the outlier in the first two periods. The '10 finishes his prep season with his stock extremely high.
9. While St. Mark's came up short, the Lions were dominant all season, going 26-4-0. Head coach Carl Corazzini and co. deserve immense credit for turning St. Mark's, a small school in Southboro, Mass., into a consistent Elite 8 contender. That program seems to be finding a new level every season. St. Mark's will be back.
10. It's rather poetic that in the year legendary Avon Old Farms head coach John Gardner died, the Winged Beavers were the best team in prep, overcoming obstacle after obstacle to reach the top.
