By Larry Moko
The St. Mary Crusaders have a habit of spoiling Aldershot High School's travel plans.
On Thursday, for the third consecutive season, St. Mary won the Golden Horseshoe Athletic Conference A/AA boys' high school hockey championship, thus denying the Burlington-based entry another opportunity to compete at the provincial level.
In 2024, the Aces could have gone to Whitby for OFSAA. Last year, they would have been on their way to Sudbury and this year's OFSAA competition is scheduled for March 24-26 in Belleville.
It will mark St. Mary's eighth overall appearance at OFSAA since 2012.
"We didn't want to let the streak end," Crusaders goaltender Lennox Borer said after he back-stopped St. Mary to a 6-2 decision at Morgan Firestone Arena.
Borer has been a member of the senior team for all three of those GHAC titles.
"They didn't want to lose this one," he said of the Halton Secondary School Athletic Association entry. "They played with a lot of pride and emotion."
Borer was particularly sharp early in the third period when Aldershot made a push to tie the score. St. Mary had built a 3-0 lead, but the Aces battled back with a pair of second-period power-play goals by Ben Peaker and Madd Marsh.
"Lennox had his best game of the year for us," St. Mary coach Jason Kokoski said. "He brought it today.
"The guys gave him a big round of applause in the dressing room for standing on his head for us. He stopped a lot of dangerous stuff."
St. Mary opened the scoring when defenceman Luke Muldoon's point shot deflected unexpectedly and trickled over the shoulder of the Aldershot goaltender.
Captain Caden Okis then scored two unanswered goals. The first was a one-timer shot and the second was on a power play.
Marsh's wraparound marker came with just 20 seconds left in the second period.
In the third, Nick Napoleone snapped in a high shot to the stick side to give St. Mary a two-goal cushion. That was followed by a backhanded goal on the rush by Thomas Garner and an empty-netter by Noah Nevins with 18.7 seconds remaining.
"I think we're a bit more talented as a team than we were last year," Kokoski said. "And we've got more experience.
"We know the teams we'll be playing at OFSAA are really good."
Okis will be making his fourth straight trip to the provincial finals. He was also a member of the team when it competed at OFSAA 2023 in St. Catharines.
"The boys battle hard," Borer said. "We've got a great group of guys and I think we'll do really well this year."
The Crusaders were 4-4-2 against Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic AAA opposition before bowing out in the quarter-final playoffs, 6-3, to the Bishop Tonnos Titans.
Aldershot tied for sixth place in its league against 12 schools with larger student populations. The Aces ultimately dropped a 5-1 semifinal decision to the Craig Kielburger Spartans.
Other St. Mary players this included Bennet Archer,
Grayson Archer, Ronnie Baillie, Braden Brown, Carter Buchanan, Kyle Buiter, Aiden Chamula, Zack Foster, Rory Gendall, Noah Girard, Jozef Glen, Lucas Hall, Ryan Johnston, Jake Kester, Ben Lamb, Lucas Liparoti, Anthony Lopez, Aiden McGee, Michael Novak, Chance Spencer and Fox Taylor.
Photos by R.F. (Bob) Butrym, RFB Sport Photography
More photos on HWCDSB Athletics Facebook page
