It was halfway through the second period and the Clarence Mustangs 18u team trailed 2-1 when 22-year-old coach Tyler Crawford called a timeout.
Mark Gilbert won’t soon forget that moment. He took a moment to look at his teammates’ faces, look at the ice, and reminisce on not just his memories with this team, but his hockey career as a whole.
It was Saturday, April 8, and the Mustangs were playing in the USA Hockey National Championship. They’d already won their first two games by scores of 7-1 and 8-1, to advance to the playoffs the next day. While this game might have been the most meaningless of the tournament — and the Mustangs lost 4-2 — the moment, for Gilbert, was not.
“It was definitely bittersweet,” Gilbert said. “I was sitting on the bench, and I looked out onto the ice at our team, and I thought of all the memories we’ve had this whole year.”
The idea for the team was born in Gilbert and teammate Luke Pierce’s religion class one day at St. Joe’s.
“Me and Mark were in religion class actually, and we were talking about this idea,” said Pierce. “What if we got a bunch of guys from the Fed team and St. Joe’s hockey to play on this same team? And everyone was just excited about it. So Mark decided to ask his dad, and he just made everything happen.”
“We all talked about it, and we were just like, ‘Why not set up a team?'” said Gilbert. “We gathered a bunch of kids from the senior class at St. Joe’s and also added a few kids from other high schools. And the Clarence Mustangs was the best organization possible that my dad could get, and everyone came over to Clarence, and we jelled pretty quickly, I guess.”
“Mark brought the idea up to me after they pretty much finalized it all, and I just went along with it, told my dad, and the rest is history,” added Jordan Weigand, also from St. Joe’s.
The team was mostly made up of St. Joe’s boys, but the Mustangs still needed a few more pieces. Enter forward Adam Batz from Williamsville North, defensemen Sam Balesteri and Ryan Kelly from Kenmore East and Clarence, respectively, and goaltenders Chase Ford and Dominick Tallarico from Kenmore East and Niagara Wheatfield, respectively.
“I played for Wheatfield AAA the year before, and a bunch of our guys from that team were gonna go play somewhere else, so our Wheatfield team broke up,” Tallarico explained. “It was a lot different because I was the only kid from Wheatfield on the [Clarence] team, and on the Wheatfield team before that, I knew most of them. These guys are from St. Joe’s, and they’re all really good hockey players and really good people as well. It was just cool to be a part of.”
Gilbert’s father, Mike Gilbert, managed the team, and brothers Tyler and Justin Crawford, both St. Joe’s alumni and current St. Joe’s coaches, took over as coaches of the Clarence Mustangs without knowing what was in store for them at the end of the season.
The beginning of the season had its challenges for the team as a whole, but Gilbert’s and Weigand’s were probably the toughest. Gilbert fractured his ankle, and Weigand had mono.
“It was the fourth game of the season in Rochester,” Gilbert explained. “I was going for a puck in the corner and I broke my leg.”
“I didn’t play the first month of the season because I had mono,” said Weigand. “But from there, I just had to kinda get my game back.”
Gilbert and Weigand made it back in time for the school season with St. Joe’s, with Gilbert’s leg still hurting in preseason practices. But they came back to help St. Joe’s to its second straight New York State Catholic Championship and then joined Clarence for the end of the season.
Without Gilbert and Weigand at the beginning, though, and as they adjusted to a few new teammates, the Mustangs struggled.
“Before the split for high school, we weren’t really meshing that well,” Pierce said. “I didn’t feel like we were playing our best hockey. It was kinda different playing with a bunch of guys from different schools. But we stopped for high school and everybody had a pretty good season. We won the state championship for St. Joe’s, and it was pretty good hockey. I feel like the high school season got us really conditioned and mentally prepared to go into the rest of our travel season and be successful, and it was a whole ‘nother ballgame when we returned. We were playing our best hockey. It seemed like nobody could really beat us, and we just took that momentum into states and nationals.”
“Earlier in the season, not gonna sugarcoat it, I [stunk],” admitted Tallarico. “Before the split, I really wasn’t that good. And then states, I did alright. And nationals, I think I played very well. I actually ended up with the second best save percentage in the tournament.”
STATES
St. Joe’s won the Catholic New York State Championship on March 5, and a week later, the Mustangs won their own State Championship.
Williamsville North won the Division 1 State Championship earlier in the day on March 12, and Adam Batz rushed from the HarborCenter to join the Mustangs at the Northtown Center some 15 miles away. He scored a goal in both games to win two state championships in one day.
It was a week of celebrations before Clarence prepared for the National Tournament.
“There was a lot of parties that week,” Gilbert said. “We were all together for a lot of it. It was a ton of fun, just winning states twice in a row. For all the Joe’s kids and Batz, just winning back-to-back state championships — for him, in one day — it’s just absolutely crazy how it all happened.”
“I think winning the state championship for St. Joe’s — it was the first for me and the second for both of these guys — it felt great,” Pierce said. “And then, all the parties and stuff, I feel like it just really helped with team chemistry and team bonding.”
“I couldn’t have written it any better,” added Weigand.
NATIONALS
The Mustangs’ last practice in Buffalo was one they won’t soon forget. Gilbert’s father was able to get the team some ice time at KeyBank Center.
“That was really cool to be skating on that for probably the last time for a long time,” said Tallarico.
Clarence and St. Joe’s practices were “opposite ends of the spectrum,” as Pierce said.
But he and his Marauder teammates were thankful for the conditioning of the St. Joe’s program, and they knew the end of their hockey careers was on the horizon and approaching quickly. The weight of that wasn’t lost on them.
“St. Joe’s was an organized, ‘you do this when I say to do this,’ and then moving from that to Clarence, it was like, ‘Just focus on your skills and do what you want, like focus on the team and working together,'” Pierce explained. “And after St. Joe’s ended, everybody pretty much knew that this was maybe the end of their hockey career coming up, so nobody wanted to go out on a bad note. Everybody was working towards going out on the highest point possible, and we made it pretty far.”
“Coming from high school definitely prepared us more,” added Weigand, Pierce’s linemate both at St. Joe’s and for the Mustangs. “Everybody was in good condition, which really helped out a lot. In states, we were flying past teams, and even in the first couple games of nationals … We definitely took it more serious at the end going into nationals. At first, we just kinda joked around and played around on the ice, but once we got to that week before nationals, we really got more serious and we knew what we were going into.”
After two big wins and one frustrating but meaningless loss in pool play, the Mustangs advanced to the National Quarterfinals on Sunday, April 9. They faced Ashburn Xtreme and came away with a 3-1 win.
“The first playoff game, we were struggling in the beginning, and I thought I played really well and kept us in it,” Tallarico said. “It was 1-0 for almost the whole game until the last couple minutes. We scored twice and kind of gave us some breathing room, and then they scored the last goal, but we got the best of it.”
The semifinal game carried more personal weight for Tyler Crawford. He’d been there before — as a player just five years earlier. He looked at the coaches several years his senior on the opposing bench and thought, “I’m gonna get out-coached this game.”
“I told the boys how much this meant to me — a little redemption,” Crawford said. “After the game, they said, ‘That game was for you, Coach,’ so it just meant a lot.”
The Mustangs defeated the Golden State Elite Eagles 4-1 with Batz scoring twice and Pierce and Mike Greco each adding one.
Chase Ford earned the win in net in the semifinal game, and Tallarico was back in net for the National Championship against Team Copper Country.
Dominic Miceli scored just 5:37 into the first period to give the Mustangs a 1-0 lead, and when Copper Country evened the score later in the period, Pierce scored 2:07 into the second to put Clarence up 2-1.
But that was the last lead the Mustangs would have, as Team Copper Country scored four unanswered, including an empty-net goal at the end, for a 5-2 win.
Tallarico stood on his head in the final game: he stopped 40 of 44 shots to keep Clarence in the game, but a few of those goals still make him wonder, what if?
“We were right in it,” Tallarico said. “Two of their goals went off our guys. Just bad bounces and tips, and if you take those two and an empty net away, that’s a 2-2 hockey game, and you never know what could happen. I’m not one for excuses, but that’s just crazy to think about that, to be that close and just came up that short.”
But his teammates and coach would say that Tallarico has nothing to hang his head about.
“He played just absolutely crazy in those games,” Gilbert said. “Having him as a goalie, him and Chase are arguably the top goalies in the Fed for sure. They both saw a lot of shots.”
“Nobody really got nervous on the bench because we knew we had such strong goaltending, and they’d do everything they could to bail us out of those situations, so it was nice having that reinforcement on the back end,” said Pierce.
“He kept us in some games in nationals, that’s for sure,” said Crawford. “The quarterfinal game, he got close to 35 shots, only let in one. And then in the finals, we wouldn’t even have been in the game without him. He had 44 shots and just made some unbelievable saves to keep us in it.”
Tallarico no longer felt like an outsider after the experiences he shared with his Mustangs teammates in Lansing, Michigan.
“After that weekend, I thought I was pretty good friends with most of them,” he said. “If you’re playing that kind of hockey at that level, being the only team from New York there for AA, it was pretty cool because it was kind of sentimental.”
Each player on the Clarence Mustangs knows that what they were able to accomplish this year is something many young hockey players can only dream of. They wish they could say they were National Champions, but they’ll look back on these moments proudly.
“I wouldn’t trade the group of guys we took to nationals for anything,” said Pierce. “It’s a memory I won’t forget for the rest of my life.”
“It was definitely the best travel hockey season I’ve ever had and definitely the best season to end your career on,” said Weigand. “Making it that far with a lot of your best friends — I couldn’t ask for anything more. It was emotional, our last game, ending it. People cried in the locker room. To end your career like that, it sucks, but making it that far was definitely one of the best memories of my hockey career.”
“It was really something to be proud of and quite a way to end a year of minor league hockey for us, and to make it that far,” said Tallarico. “Not many people make it that far. I don’t know any of my friends that have gone to nationals. It’s just quite an accomplishment.”
And Crawford was certainly proud of his players as well and what they were able to do together in his first year as a head coach.
“Just a great group of guys, really,” Crawford said. “I mean, sure, they didn’t win their last game, but they’re all gonna go on and do exceptional things in life. Gonna do great in college next year, so I’m just really excited to see what they do in the future.”
Jordan Weigand and Mark Gilbert after receiving their NY State Championship rings at a ceremony on Monday, July 10, 2017.
He appreciated Mark Gilbert’s sense of humor and knack for keeping things lighthearted.
“He just brings a different perspective to the game, keeps the bench loose, always saying something funny, got a goofy look on his face, and I couldn’t ask for much more.”
Crawford called Luke Pierce the heart and soul of the team.
“Without a doubt, Luke Pierce was the heart and soul of the team this year. Could throw him out in any situation. He was just unbelievable. Great kid on and off the ice. He really came up big for us in nationals and in states.”
And Weigand’s hard work and passion was what Crawford appreciated most about him.
“He just left everything out there. We just joked around that he was hanging ’em up every game, and he brought everything he had. Couldn’t ask for anything else from him. A lot of passion in his game.”
THE FUTURE: FROM TEAMMATES TO ROOMMATES
Mark Gilbert plans to attend Penn State in the fall, where he’ll major in business, maybe play club hockey, and room with Adam Batz.
They were linemates both for St. Joe’s and Clarence, but Luke Pierce and Jordan Weigand aren’t sick of each other yet. They plan to room together at Duquesne University in the fall, along with St. Joe’s/Clarence teammate Alex Zuchlewski. Pierce will major in biomedical engineering and Weigand will major in psychology.
“Hockey career is over,” Weigand said. “Finalized.”
Tallarico plans to attend Canisius College and play club hockey there.
THANK YOU
Mark Gilbert: “I just want to say thank you to everyone that was with us the whole year and made our hockey careers possible. My dad and my mom. Especially my dad for organizing this whole team. I want to thank all the guys on the team for a season I’ll remember.”
Luke Pierce: “I’d like to just thank my parents for everything they did for me throughout my whole hockey career throughout my whole life. It means a lot to me, and some of the experiences I had over those years are memories I won’t forget for the rest of my life.”
Jordan Weigand: “I definitely want to thank my parents for letting me play this sport for the last 15 years, and I also want to thank Justin and Tyler, just for giving up their time even though they’re in college and giving it to us and just giving us the opportunity to play.”
Dominick Tallarico: “I couldn’t really do it without my parents, coming from really just a little family, and them helping me through it all the way makes it out to be quite an experience, and I couldn’t thank them enough for all hockey’s done for me, and I’m sure they loved going on the trips and stuff like that too. I’d like to thank all the coaches too that helped me out throughout the years. I couldn’t do it without them.”