The St. Basil Saints used solid goaltending from Donnie Bruni and a hat trick performance from Brandon McCaig to defeat the St. Mary's Knights for the high school hockey city championship.
McCaig scored all three Saints goals as St. Basil held on for a 3-1 win on Sunday night at Memorial Gardens to give the team a 3-2 win in the best-of-five league championship series and claim the Canadian Legion Cup.
While both teams will participate at the Northern Ontario Secondary Schools Association (NOSSA) AAA championships beginning Tuesday in Sault Ste. Marie, the Saints will hold the city's number one seed.
St. Basil will open against Sudbury Lasalle on Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. at the Gardens followed by St. Mary's and North Bay's Scollard Hall at 11 a.m.
"From the first week of the season, we knew that we would have to beat them in order to win. We had been pushing all season waiting for our chance and obviously a lot of things went right for us," said St. Basil coach Steve Korab.
"We fought for one game first and then we fought for another. After we won a game, our confidence built and we figured that we deserve it just as much as them after that. When a team comes into a series undefeated like that, all you can do is focus on getting that first win and go from there."
St. Basil opened the deciding game on Sunday with a quick start before St. Mary's rebounded and scored the game's opening goal 3:56 into the contest when Eric Diboll's point shot found its way past Bruni.
The Saints answered 21 seconds later when McCaig beat St. Mary's goaltender Justin Soltys with a rising shot from the high slot.
Soltys also made some big saves for Knights and robbed the Saints Scott McCabe early in the second period to keep the score tied at 1-1.
McCaig put the Saints ahead 2-1 at 9:45 of the second frame and from there, the Saints relied on defense and Bruni's netminding.
"Bruni proved again that he is the best goaltender in the league and he made some big saves. McCaig had a clutch performance and converted on all his chances," said Korab
St. Mary's had a chance to tie the game five minutes into the final period but Bruni made a huge glove save on Matt Dias with the Knights rushing in on a 2-on-1 break.
McCaig scored the game winner with 5:34 remaining in regulation time after stripping the puck from the St. Mary's defense and beating Soltys through the legs on the ensuing breakaway.
St. Mary's pulled to within a goal on the power play at 3-2 when Matt Kudyba converted a pass across with a shot up high on Bruni with 1:42 remaining.
With a delayed penalty being called against the Saints on Kudyba's goal, the Knights went back on the power play again following the score.
The Knights had their best chance to tie with 1:10 remaining but Bruni robbed Jacob D'Agostini with a glove save from point blank range.
"I just tried my best to keep the puck out of the net," said Bruni. "Even though they were undefeated it is playoff hockey and anything can happen. Winning in game one was huge boost because we realized that they were beatable.
"We're really focused right now and we know that St. Mary's will be even tougher to beat in NOSSA and will better than the other two teams we will face."
"This is a great feeling because we beat an amazing hockey team tonight," said McCaig. "We just stuck to our game plan. We controlled the puck and waited for our breaks. If we stick to our game plan, our chances will come more often than not. We needed to make them play our style because if we play their style than we start scrambling."
Anthony Amadio assisted on both goals for the Knights.
"It was a very emotional game and I though we had the majority of our chances but we just couldn't capitalize on them," said St. Mary's head coach Dave Barton. "Bruni was the difference all series and McCaig had a great game as well.
"I am as proud of my guys now as I was before the game started. We played hard and fought hard and the only difference was they had a couple bounces go in and we didn't. Either way, this was great for high school hockey and it was great to see all the support both teams had here tonight."
"It's not too often in life that you get a second chance (NOSSA) and now we have one so it's up to us to see what we can do with it."
*** WHITE PINES vs. SIR JAMES DUNN:
In another deciding game on Sunday night, the White Pines Wolverines used two empty net goals in the final 30 seconds to secure a 3-0 win over the Sir James Dunn Eagles and vault the Wolverines into the NOSSA AA playdowns in Lively.
The victory gave White Pines a 3-2 best-of-five win in a special series to determine the city's third NOSSA representative.
Adam Vallee scored to give the Wolverines a 1-0 lead before Noah Rushon and Justin Wensley scored into the empty net. Chris McGrath recorded the shutout in net while Ryan Maunu recorded two assists.
The Wolverines open NOSSA on Tuesday and will face Lively, North Bay's West Ferris Trojans and Sudbury's St. Charles in the round robin tournament. The top two teams will meet in the championship final.
*** NOSSA AAA SCHEDULE:
The following is the complete schedule for the NOSSA playdowns in the Sault:
TUESDAY, MARCH 9
9 a.m. - Gardens - Lasalle vs. St. Basil 11 a.m. - Gardens - Lasalle vs. St. Mary's
6 p.m. - Rhodes - St. Mary's vs. Lasalle 8 p.m. - Rhodes - Scollard Hall vs. St. Basil
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10
9 a.m. - Gardens - St. Basil vs. St. Mary's 11 a.m. - Gardens - Scollard Hall vs. Lasalle
7 p.m. - Gardens - Championship game (2nd vs. 1st)