On Wednesday afternoon, the rivalry between the #3 seeds St. Thomas Aquinas Raiders and the 6th ranked Holy Trinity Titans (HT) came to a head.
The end-to-end action went all the way to an incredibly exciting dual shootout; where players from each team simultaneously took penalty shots to decide a winner.
Holy Trinity Captain Jack Grant scored with 47 seconds remaining in the first period to give the Titans a 1-0 lead going into the first intermission, and HT would get another in the second period from Dylan Lee before St. Thomas would come roaring back to close out the interval.
The Raiders were not ready to just roll over and die, despite being down two goals, as Clayton Kollee took the game by the scruff of the neck, scoring two goals of his own - in the last 2 minutes to close out the second, thus, giving Aquinas some hope of pulling off the come back in the 3rd.
The tide began to turn in the third period, however, and Trinity gained confidence as they managed to fend off 2 penalties over the span of nearly 3 minutes, with almost a full minute of 5-3 hockey.
Head Coach Angelo Sottana was quick to heap praise on his Titans for their resiliency in the 3rd, “I think in their heads they just knew what they needed to do.” Beaming about his squads' response, he continued, “We got a couple of lucky bounces, got a couple of draws and got the puck out. Our guys stayed disciplined. They got 4 in the box. Playing the triangle they did okay, and that 4-minute kill was important. That killed the momentum of the game for them.”
There was a massive call to action in the second intermission from Jack Grant. He would not let his team go down without fighting tooth and nail by taking matters into his own hands.
“We went into the room there in the intermission, and I yelled at every guy and told them to get their heads in it and stay going because right away we knew we were winning this game; there was no chance we were losing today.” the captain exclaimed.
Despite Captian Jack’s motivational speech, St. Thomas we’re able to notch the next marker and Trafalgar Park Arena erupted with 4:26 left on the clock when Rob Gray scored the go-ahead goal - completing a monumental comeback, potting three unanswered goals in front of their home fans, but, momentum is a funny thing.
With 3:13 seconds remaining in the third period, Grant got the puck on his stick once more and made no mistake! Burying his second goal of the game, and in doing so - sucking all the air out of the building, as the things headed to overtime.
Nothing would be solved in the 4th stanza, and things would need to be settled by a scintillating dual-action shootout.
Once the final whistle was reached - the pressure valve released, and it was time for the goaltenders to make names for themselves.
Trinity netminder Angelo Turco savored the moment - saying once the shootout came around he could finally relax, “To be honest you don’t think about it. For me, the hardest minutes to play are the first three; when it comes down to crunch time, whatever, it’s fun hockey; that’s just what I love to do at the end of the day; that's why I play the game, so a shootout is all just fun and you know thankfully it went our way today.”
Holy Trinity will go on to play #2 seed St. Francis Xavier (4-1-3) this afternoon.
Oakville’s St. Ignatius of Loyola Hawks (2-6-0) advanced on their side of the bracket, pulling off a massive #8 vs #1 upset, toppling previously undefeated Notre Dame (6-0-2).
Loyola will travel to Burlington to take on Corpus Christi at 3 pm, while Trinity makes their way up to Milton to play St.F.X. at the same time.