Last year at this time, St. Joe’s coach Rich Crozier was trying to figure out what went wrong. The year before, his Marauders had lost to Canisius in the Monsignor Martin finals, who went on to win the state championship.
Crozier thought about it often during the following offseason, and he wasn’t sure what a new season held for his team.
Little did he know, although he dared to hope, that the 2015-16 season held redemption for St. Joe’s. After defeating Canisius in the Monsignor Martin finals, the Marauders were off to Brooklyn, where Jeremy Ienco scored the game-winning goal in overtime to defeat St. Anthony’s for a Catholic state championship.
“Last year was just an amazing season,” Crozier said. “I remember us talking at this time last year and all these question marks in my head about goaltending and those sort of things, and it’s funny how it just all comes together. We accomplished some great things last year, and it was a great season. For some programs, they might even say that was the season of a lifetime or something like that. But for us, the nice thing is we reached our goals and that was our expectation: we wanted to get back to the state championship. It’s just kind of exciting when you have a plan and it comes together.”
Ienco returns this season, and he’ll be one of 15 seniors on this year’s team. Now in his third year with St. Joe’s Fed team, Ienco has experienced the worst and the best.
“Last year was my second year on the team, and with the disappointment my first year, it just felt amazing to come out on top,” he said. “It really shows how much the hard work that we put in every practice really pays off. It’d be amazing to have the same result this year. That last game, we came back from a one-goal deficit, and it’s just because we were in better shape, and we just never gave up, all season, including that game. It could have been anybody to score the goal.”
Seniors Mike Greco and Trevor Conschafter return for their second season after getting a taste of the work ethic St. Joe’s is known for along with a large serving of winning.
“Last year was definitely a really special year for us,” said Greco, who had a couple game winners himself last season. “Being my first year, I didn’t really know what to expect, but I heard some things coming in about how hard you work and what it takes. I found out pretty quickly what they were talking about, so it felt really good to come to practice every day and work hard with all these guys, and it definitely paid off in the end, so I’m kind of hoping we can do the same thing this year.”
Conschafter was known for his hard work last season; it earned him the game puck in the state championship game.
“We definitely worked really hard last year, and throughout the season we worked even harder,” Conschafter said. “I think at the end, our resolve was pretty good, so I think if we just keep working hard, we’ll get the results that we want.”
But winning last year doesn’t mean that this season will be an easy one. Crozier and his team know that full well.
“We feel really good about what happened last year, but we’ve got a big challenge ahead of us,” Crozier said. “There’s only one time where we’ve won it back-to-back, and I can tell you that it’s incredibly difficult. It’s incredibly difficult to do it two years in a row. We’ve got a target on our back now. I think we won 21 games in a row. We plan on keeping that going, but every team that plays us is gonna be the one wanting to knock us off.”
The graduating class of 2016 included the core of the Marauders’ defense — August Cudeck, last year’s captain; Brad Herlan, who scored the game winner in last year’s win over Canisius; and Nick Wahler, who was named to last year’s senior Bowman Cup team. Last year’s starting goaltender, Dan Mikolajczak, gave the team exactly what it needed even as a sophomore last year, but he has decided to pursue other opportunities.
But with some losses come some key returners, including Greco, Conschafter, and Ienco, as well as defenseman Jack Lalley.
“Jeremy scores the game-winning goal in overtime,” Crozier said. “You know what Conschafter did; you know Greco, Lalley — they’re all household names now, and that’s how the system is supposed to work. They’re supposed to continue to get better as juniors and then as seniors, the expectations are really high. We have 15 seniors right now on the roster. We’re gonna be old again. We’re probably gonna be the oldest team in the league.”
But with an older team, Crozier hopes, comes maturity. While hockey is important and he expects commitment and hard work, Crozier wants himself and his team to remember that there is more to life.
“My expectation is that we’ll be good skaters, we’ll have a lot of depth, we have our priorities in order,” Crozier said. “We understand that there’s more to life than hockey. We want to win, we’ll do everything we can to win, but if it doesn’t go our way, we’ll be okay. I want to be okay. I want to win a state championship, but I’m pretty blessed. So if it doesn’t happen, if it’s not in God’s plan, we’re all okay with that.”
The good skating is one aspect of their game that the Marauders work on in every practice. At 8 pm Sunday night, they spent the majority of practice doing just that — skating.
“We got a lot of guys who can skate,” Greco said. “Skating is the main thing we work on in practice, so we try to have the fastest team. Coach Crozier was saying it out there today, it’s his goal to get us to be the best skating team in the state, so whether that’s speed, endurance, a combination of both, I’m pretty confident we’ll get there. So I think through all four lines, all four D pairs, if we’re the fastest team on the ice, I think we’re gonna be pretty hard to beat.”
“We gotta be the best skating team on the ice every game,” said Conschafter. “I think that we have a lot of seniors and upperclassmen, so we can show our leadership and really help out the younger guys.”
“I think it’s just our work ethic — the speed and the strength, just the work in the corners,” Ienco added. “Wearing down teams is where we’re gonna win games late. It might be even through the first two, but we’re gonna have the endurance for it all. So I think endurance and speed is our strength.”
Like Conschafter, Greco and Ienco also hope to bring leadership to each practice and game, along with their individual skills and contributions.
“I hope to do the right thing, play the right way, and kinda hope the rest of the guys will follow my example,” said Greco. “I hope I can score goals. That’s what I like to do. That’s how I see myself. It took me a little bit to get going last year, but once I found my stride, I did alright, so I’m trying to do that this year. Take care of the puck in the D zone too, get the puck to some of my faster wingers. Just play a complete game and try to find the back of the net a couple times.”
“Being on the team for two years, I kinda know what’s expected from us. I just go out and do it, and hopefully I can be a positive leader for our team,” said Conschafter. “Hopefully I can play a complete game. Obviously defense is more important than offense, so I don’t want to get scored on too much, but I think that my line should just get the puck deep and just go get it and go from there.”
“Third year on the team, you kinda know the ins and outs of St. Joe’s hockey, and I just hope to be a vocal leader and lead by example too,” said Ienco. “I’d really like to just be an all-around player for the team. Maybe put a few goals in here and there, but just outwork the opponents is really huge.”
And they know it won’t be easy, but the Marauders would love nothing more than to repeat as state champions. They don’t want to let themselves, their school, and their community down, but they also don’t want to get too far ahead of themselves.
“I’m expecting nothing less than what we did last year — a repeat, hopefully,” Greco said. “State championship in Buffalo this time. We lost a couple guys that definitely helped us a lot last year, but I know us three here and other guys in that room got a lot better than last year and are ready to step up. We got some younger guys, too, that I think will make a pretty big difference, so I’m looking forward to it.”
“Our goal is to win another state championship game, but I think we just gotta take it one week at a time now and keep getting better, and we’ll get there if we just keep going,” said Conschafter.
“It’s always one game, one week at a time,” said Ienco. “I feel the pressure from our school and the community is just, we’re always expected to win, so it’s a disappointment when we don’t.
“I think these practices, the hard work and just skating practices really help to put in perspective that it’s a whole different year, and nothing comes for granted, especially when you’re wearing the St. Joe’s logo.”
St. Joe’s opens its season Dec. 3 against Niagara Wheatfield at Northtown Center. Puck drop is scheduled for 3 pm.