St. Anthony's Hockey Wins Title

With their head coach suspended, the St. Anthony’s boys hockey team was facing unfamiliar circumstances with the CHSAA title on the line. But in the end, the Friars  continued to dominate.

At the Ice Hutch in Mount Vernon, the Friars defeated the Monsignor Farrell Lions 6-3  Friday night and won the CHSAA hockey championship with 2-0 series victory in the best of 3 series.

St. Anthony’s was without head coach Jeff Stelmok after he was suspended two games for some comments he made to Farrell Head Coach Pete Jerabeck after game 1.

The comments came after Farrell’s top scorer Nick Thorgersen speared Friars junior Chris Sabanos in the neck. Thorgersen was suspended three games for the incident.

After Farrell took an early 1-0 lead, the Friars took the lead and never relinquished it.

Junior Forward Chris Wallace got the tying goal with 9:02 remaining in the 1st period and after a penalty on senior Nicholas Smith for interference, Wallace scored short-handed to give the Friars the lead.

Three seconds after the penalty on Smith was over, Sophomore Michael Marnell found the back of the net to extend the lead to 3-1.

Marnell later scored on the power play with under 3 minutes left to extend the lead to 4-2 at the end of the first period.

Acting head coach Mike O’Connell spoke after the game about the success his team had after falling behind early.

“It's not the first time we have given up the first goal of the game. We knew that even if we gave up the first goal we would be able to, with our depth and with our speed be able to control the game as it went on, and I think it showed,” he said.

As the rest of the game unfolded, the hitting became more intense between the schools and the defense for both teams began to sure up after a lackluster first 15  minutes of play.

The teams traded goals in the 2nd period, the Farrell goal coming on a Penalty Shot and the only goal of the third period was an Empty Net goal which put an end to an emotional and hard fought series.  

After the game was over, Marnell talked about his two goal performance as only a sophomore in the championship game.

“I’m very excited, this being my first year on the team and I’m happy that we are going to states for another year and I’m excited to go for my first time,” he said.

At the end of the series the most important thing on the mind of the coaches and players was that this win was for Stelmok.

“What I said before the game was, ‘We're a family and for one of our family members to not be at the game today meant a lot’ and I think a lot of kids put a lot of heart into it. 'We did it for Jeffrey' was our little pre-game speech,”  O’Connell said.