The NEPSAC boys Elite 8 quarterfinal games begin Wednesday. In my three years of covering prep, this feels like the biggest toss-up of a tournament field.
In 2023, Cushing and Avon Old Farms were much better than the rest of the pack. Cushing was back in the championship again last season, but Kimball Union replaced Avon Old Farms as a much-better-than-everyone-else team.
There's no such thing this season.
The top slew of teams rotated throughout. The Nos. 7 and 8 seeds on Saturday morning were different than the ones in the finalized bracket on Sunday.
Then comes the next problem: picking winners. I went 13-5 through the quarterfinals and semifinals last season, seemingly picking games in the Elite 8, Large School and Small School fields with ease.
FOLLOW THE TOURNAMENTS: Elite 8 | Large School | Small School
If I'm going to celebrate my wins, I've also got to note my losses...and I had a day full of them on championship day. I somehow went 0-3 last season, which might be more impressive than my sparkling record through two rounds.
But this is a new season and a clean slate for predictions. It's time to give some teams some bulletin board material.
Let's dive in.
No. 1 Deerfield vs. No. 8 Nobles
Nobles has some big wins this season, taking down Belmont Hill early, Kimball Union at the Flood-Marr Tournament, Berkshire, Phillips Andover, Thayer and Governor's Academy twice in the final month. The Bulldogs will need to bring that same kind of energy on Wednesday against Deerfield.
Nobles actually holds a bit of an edge offensively, boasting more goals (117) and it has the two best players in the game with Billy MacAusland (Westwood, Mass.) and Kyle O'Leary (Medfield, Mass.). As for offensive depth, these teams are rather even with a plethora of older players who chip in.
But Deerfield is better on defense. Players like Zachary Chedade and Nate Watson are legitimate difference-makers for Deerfield on defense. The Big Green rank third in the region in goals against (55). While that says a lot about their team defense, it also shows how good junior Elliot Lennon has been this season. The 6-foot-3 netminder sports a 2.03 goals-against average and a .926 save percentage.
I like Nobles freshman '09 goalie Justin Lee (Newton, Mass.) a lot. But Lennon is older and gives Deerfield an advantage.
Prediction:Â Deerfield wins, 5-3.
ROUTE TO A TITLE: The path for every Large School team | The path for every Small School team
No. 2 St. Mark's vs. No. 7 Rivers
This is a phenomenal pairing and unlike a typical No. 2 vs. No. 7 matchup because it's a toss-up. These are ISL Eberhart rivals, so they've already met twice this season. St. Mark's won their first meeting, 4-3, on Jan. 18 at Rivers. It was a relatively even, back-and-forth game. They met again on Feb. 19 at St. Mark's and Rivers won, 4-2, with the fourth goal being an empty-netter.
One small caveat to that second game was that St. Mark's leading point-getter Evan Nee (Arlington, Mass.) was ejected for an unsportsmanlike conduct halfway through the first period.
As for how these two teams match up, Rivers has the second-best offense in the region with 138 goals, while St. Mark's has the second-best defense. The Lions have only allowed 52 goals this season. But St. Mark's isn't that far behind in goals for (119) and Rivers is close in terms of goals against (64).
This is a coin flip.
Rivers certainly has the edge in high-end talent with players like Carter Meyer, Finn Sears, Sam Pandolfo and Justin Graf. But St. Mark's has arguably the top goalie in the region with Justin BriseBois. And the difference between goalies is greater than the gap between the forward groups.
Prediction:Â St. Mark's wins, 4-3, in overtime.
No. 3 Dexter Southfield vs. No. 6 Salisbury
Dexter Southfield holds the offensive advantage. Head coach Danny Donato's team has way more offensive firepower with players like Boston University commit Rian Chudzinski (Needham, Mass.), seniors Sean Leetch (Boston, Mass.) and Nate Porter (Hingham, Mass.), juniors Joe Marchi (Foxboro, Mass.) and Nick D'Olympio (Rockland, Mass.) and sophomore Noah Survilas (Winthrop, Mass.). Defensively, Dexter has the fifth-fewest goals against (55), while Salisbury is tied for 10th at 64.
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But Dexter's play of late has been concerning. Despite starting the season 18-2-0, Dexter tied Portsmouth Abbey and lost to St. Paul's, Winchendon and Holderness in the final weeks of the season. Salisbury went 14-2-3 after Jan. 4 with its only two losses being one-goal defeats to Berkshire (1-0) and Westminster (3-2 in overtime).
Dexter can certainly overpower Salisbury. But it's entering the Elite 8 cold and the Crimson Knights have historically been a ridiculously good team in the Elite 8.
I'm going with the upset.
Prediction:Â Salisbury wins, 4-2.
No. 4 Cushing vs. No. 5 Brunswick
These are two teams who've been headed in different directions of late.
Brunswick went 12-0-2 before the calendar flipped to 2025, while Cushing took some time to find itself in December, going 5-3-1. Both teams had hiccups in mid-January — Brunswick lost a weekend set with Dexter Southfield, while Cushing fell to Salisbury and Deerfield in consecutive games.
It's really about the final month. Brunswick stumbled, going 5-3-1 with two of those losses coming in the final two games of the season. Cushing went 8-0-1 in the final month and enters this game on an eight-game winning streak. One of those wins was a 5-0 triumph over Brunswick at Sacred Heart.
Do I think this quarterfinal game will be 5-0? No way.
QUARTERFINAL PREDICTIONS: Boys Large School | Boys Small School | Girls Elite 8 | Girls Large School | Girls Small SchoolÂ
Brunswick has the advantage in high-end talent with forwards Joe Salandra and Mason St. Louis (Old Greenwich, Conn.). Cushing, however, has the best defensive core in prep and a slight edge in net with junior Maksim Corovic.
I usually have a rule that if teams play each other late in the season and they play again in the playoffs, I take the team that lost in the regular season to win in the postseason. But Cushing has looked unstoppable of late.
Prediction:Â Cushing wins, 2-1, in overtime.
