The players on the East Williston-Jericho hockey team fired four shots last Sunday that struck the pipes of the goal and those near misses proved crucial in a 5-2 loss to Canisius in the state finals – their only loss of the season.
“To have this kind of year, things have to bounce your way. A couple of bounces the other way, that game is ours,” said East Williston-Jericho coach Jon Turk. “Everyone gave it their best. It wasn’t for lack of effort. We just ran out of gas.”
Turk said the team was forced to enter the tournament shorthanded because two of his best players were playing with their junior club teams and didn’t make the trip to Jamestown.
The team, he said, was forced to rely on two offensive lines players through the four games of the state championship tournament.
East Williston-Jericho took a 1-0 lead in the first period, and clanked a shot off the Canisius crossbar.
Canisius came back in the second period, scoring one goal on a breakaway and a second tally on a penalty.
The Buffalo school came out battling in the third period and scored two more goals to go up 4-1 before East Williston-Jericho came back with a single tally.
In the closing minutes of the contest, East Williston-Jericho pulled its goalie and Canisius capped their win with a fifth goal in an empty net.
East Williston-Jericho had won two games and tied one to reach the final after an 18-0 clean sweep in the regular season to win the Michelino Division title in Nassau County. East Williston-Jericho swept Massapequa High School by scores of 4-1 and 6-1 to clinch the Michelino title.
The state title put them against teams from Upstate.
Last Friday, they ran their winning streak to 19 with a 5-2 win over Starpoint High School, a team from the Niagara area.
On Saturday, they played Cleveland Hill High School to a 3-3 tie. In their second game on Saturday, they took a 6-3 lead over Maple Grove High School.
Knowing they only needed a tie to make the state final, Turk freely substituted players from his bench and Maple Grove came storming back with three goals to tie the score. But with 20 seconds to go in the final period, East Williston-Jericho defenseman Andrew Fox skated the length of the ice to score and give his team a 7-6 victory to ride into the final.
“Even though we didn’t need to win it, it was psychologically helpful going in to the finals. And everybody got to play,” Turk said.
The team’s leading scorer and co-captain, Wheatley School senior Matthew Bernot, was at the top of his game through the tournament, scoring 10 goals in four games, including one tally in the final.
Jericho’s Andrew Fox scored three goals and his brother, Adam, scored two.
Wheatley senior goalie Graham Turk said the team, comprised of Wheatley and Jericho High School athletes who hadn’t played together before the season began, were a unified force on their road to the state title game.
“It was really a team effort. Guys stepped up in really important games,” said Turk, the team’s other co-captain. “I think we all played for each other.”
The loss in the final one was a difficult one, considering the goals that might have been.
“For the seniors, this was their last chance at a title. So they took it kind of hard,” coach Turk said. “Everyone felt just privileged to have competed so well. That’s what everyone took away after the sting of the final buzzer going off.”
On the long bus ride home, he said the kids were laughing and playing cards.
Turk’s son, Graham, said he and his teammates are pleased with what they accomplished, despite falling short of their ultimate goal.
“It was a great season. While it wasn’t the result we hoped for, it was more about the experience itself of getting there,” the goalie said. “For a team in its first season together, we were really proud of yourselves. Just getting there was great.”
The East Williston-Jericho team may be playing one more game – for the Long Island hockey championship – according to coach Turk, once the Suffolk County champion is determined in a playoff tournament not yet completed.
He said he received word just before the team left for the state tourney last week that the High School Hockey League of Nassau County had scheduled a first Nassau-Suffolk Championship game for Saturday night, March 23, at the Oyster Bay Ice Rink.
But Turk said half of his team will be unavailable since that weekend marks the start of their weeklong spring break from school.
“It may not happen. If I don’t have enough kids, I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Turk said.
