Aside from the coaches and maybe the players, no one knows more about St. Mary’s hockey than St. Mary’s senior Jon Pasternak. He attended most of the team’s games this season and paid his own way to join the team at the club hockey state tournament in Long Island, New York.
The following is Pasternak’s account of St. Mary’s 2016-17 season after going without a hockey team for a year. Next season, the Lancers will once again join the Fed.
If you asked any player on the Saint Mary’s of Lancaster hockey team at the beginning of the season if they thought they would finish the season state semifinalists and third in the state, they probably would’ve told you no and laughed. The state tournament wasn’t even in mind after the first couple of practices. The main goal was just to win a game.
For this first-year program, started by head coach Mark Dantonio, winning it all seemed like a stretch of the imagination. After a year without hockey at St. Mary’s, Dantonio was brought in to rejuvenate the program in an area that breathes hockey. Dantonio (who used to coach at St. Francis) bought in and believed in what he could do with St Mary’s. He got guys to buy into what he was doing and slowly pieced together a hockey team.
The first day of school rolled around at St. Mary’s and the hockey presence was already impressive. When walking the halls students would see new faces and “the hockey flow” on students.
A couple months passed and finally it was time for practice. The players didn’t know what to expect as some of them didn’t even know each other. I remember captain Lucas Prince coming over after the first practice and shaking his head. He said, “We’ll be lucky if we win a game.”
A few weeks of practice went by and then it was time for the first game. In front of a packed house at Cheektowaga Town Park, the Lancers beat Cheektowaga by an impressive 6-1. This win set the tone for the season and shocked many who doubted the Lancers.
The Lancers started the season 3-0 but then dropped a few games, and nobody knew what to think of the team. As the season went on, the school and community were starting to realize the potential this program had.
The season came to a close with a statement game. St. Mary’s went head to head with St. Joe’s at North Buffalo rink and pulled off the overtime “upset” win on St. Joe’s senior night. This started the forward momentum that St. Mary’s carried to the state tournament.
The team finished as the No. 1 seed in the small school playoffs and carried a first line that showed the talent of three of the top four goal scorers in the league. They also had probably the best pair of goaltenders in the league as sophomore Kyle Karoleski and junior Cameron Ruggiero split games all season until the very last. Both goalies played hot towards the end of the season, and the strongest play of much of the team propelled them to the championship game on Super Sunday at the Keybank Center.
With a berth to the state tournament already clinched, this game was for pride and for the school. Going head to head with Starpoint, who is a perennial contender in the small school division, the Lancers knew they had some work ahead of them.
Sophomore Brendan Krawczyk started the scoring that day and proved to be a larger factor than most expected for the Lancers in the postseason. Lucas Prince followed up with a give-and-go goal to put the Lancers up 2-1, and late in the third period, as Starpoint made its final effort to score, sophomore Alex Bialkowski sent one down ice and found the empty net to give the Lancers the 3-1 victory and their first hockey title in school history.
The hockey team became the kings of campus that following week and went out in full force as they sported their white championship T-shirts to the men’s basketball finals and cheered them on to victory, bringing the school two championships they had never seen before in just one week.
Next up for the Lancers was the state tournament. The boys headed to Long Beach, New York to take on St Joe’s, Locust Valley, and Bellmore Merrick in pool play for a berth at the state semifinals.
The Lancers started the weekend strong with an overtime win against rival St. Joe’s in a thriller that showed what the Lancers were made of. Junior goaltender Cameron Ruggiero, made 42 saves in the 3-2 win to propel the Lancers to victory. Sophomore Daniel Pfalzer scored the overtime goal and everyone in the arena went nuts, including me.
St. Joe’s is a perennial contender at the state tournament and has made a name for themselves, so many of the people walking in the arena from around the state were shocked when they looked at the scoreboard and saw that St. Joe’s had dropped their first game of the tournament.
The Lancers went on to win their next game in overtime once again over Locust Valley on a goal by sophomore Chris Henry as he had the weekend of his life for the Lancers. The Lancers to play Bellmore Merrick that night and hoped to move on. The Lancers suffered a 3-1 loss, but still advanced to the state semifinals. The celebration at the end of this game by the Lancers seemed to stun the local Bellmore Merrick crowd, who was unaware that the outcome had to have been 5-1 for Bellmore to advance.
The Lancers finished as the No. 1 seed in their division and would go on to play Canisius the next morning in the state semifinal. Canisius had given the Lancers problems all season, beating them five out of five times, but the Lancers didn’t let this affect them and took the ice with the anticipation of winning. The puck dropped, the fans yelled, and the players clapped their sticks off the boards as this would be the most important game of many of these kids’ lives.
A quick goal by the Crusaders just two minutes into the game worried many fans. The thought of losing to Canisius again was just something nobody wanted to fathom. Then a 5-on-3 advantage gave Lucas Prince a wide open one-time look in front of the net to tie the game with his first goal of the weekend. The momentum seemed to shift in the arena, and the Lancers started to control the game. A goal by Daniel Pfalzer gave the Lancers a 2-1 lead and a ray of hope that they would play in the state championship game. They headed to the locker room up 2-1 for the second period intermission with confidence, as they had been playing the best third periods of the season lately.
The third period started and the Lancers didn’t look like themselves. Mistakes resulted in two quick Canisius goals that would give them a 3-2 lead and the momentum. Time was winding down as hope was starting to go away when, with 1:45 left in regulation, Brendan Krawczyk buried one to give the Lancers the hope they needed and send the game to overtime. One overtime period went by and no one scored.
Then a 3-on-3 overtime period began. Shortly into the period, a turnover in the Lancer zone resulted in a 2-on-0 breakaway and a heartbreaking Canisius goal. The miracle season was over and the Lancers had been eliminated from the state tournament. Tears fell down the faces of the players; many felt disappointment as others felt anger and sadness.
After the game, sophomore Brendan Krawczyk said he was disappointed and felt bad because he wanted to get that title for lone senior Matt Pietrzak, who had to suffer through the year without a hockey team and who proved to be the shining light of the team on and off the ice.
Although disappointment was in the air, many of these young men have nothing to hang their heads for. A team consisting of only four upperclassmen (one senior and three juniors) made it to the state semifinal against teams of almost all upperclassmen, in schools with deep hockey tradition.
This St. Mary’s team hopes to continue success with their acceptance into the WNY Federation League for the 2017-2018 season. Look out for the Lancers, as I predict they will be a tough team to beat over the next couple of years.