MIDDLETON – The Green Bay Notre Dame boys hockey team had a chance to make history Saturday.
Madison Edgewood just wouldn’t cooperate.
The Tritons’ bid for a state championship three-peat ended with a 5-2 loss to the Crusaders in the WIAA Division 1 title game at Bob Suter’s Legacy20 Arena.
Notre Dame (19-9) could have become just the second team to win three straight championships since the WIAA started sponsoring a tournament in 1971 and the first since Superior accomplished the feat from 1994 to 1996.
Edgewood (23-6) entered as the No. 4 seed but pulled off two upsets to win its first state title in its eighth appearance, beating No. 1 seed Brookfield East in a thrilling 5-4 triple-overtime semifinal Friday before defeating No. 3 seed Notre Dame.
It finished the season on a 17-game winning streak.
“I thought Edgewood did a really good job setting the pace early in the first period,” Notre Dame coach Mike Szkodzinski said. “They are a good team. They are a good team for a long time. When you win 17 straight games, there is a reason for it.
“We had some momentum shifts where I thought a bounce here or a bounce there puts us right back in the game. The puck didn’t happen to go in for us tonight, and it stings.”
The game couldn’t have started much better for the Tritons.
They took a 1-0 lead in the opening minutes of the first period on a power-play goal from junior forward Owen Atkinson off an assist from Drew Heil.
It was Atkinson’s 16th goal of the season and his first since scoring twice in a win over Fond du Lac Springs in a sectional semifinal last month.
Notre Dame beat Edgewood 5-1 during the season, and the early score perhaps gave some hope another win would follow, but four straight goals by the Crusaders made it painfully obvious it wasn’t going to happen.
Edgewood got on the board with 1 minute, 33 seconds left in the first period, when junior forward Owen Koch tied the score with his 29th goal of the season and his second of the state tournament at that point after he scored the game-winner in the semifinal against Brookfield.
Koch was part of a dominant offensive quartet this season along with Matt Richter, Davis Halbleib and Owen Porter. They all entered the big stage with 25 or more goals and helped make the Crusaders the second-highest scoring team in the state.
It was Halbleib who put Edgewood up by a goal with 14:19 left in the second period, a lead it never would relinquish.
Things got even more difficult for Notre Dame with 2:06 remaining in the period on a power-play goal from Porter that made it 3-1 entering the second intermission.
“I’d say they played a lot more physical than we did,” Notre Dame junior forward Ryker Thomas said. “It kind of started slowing us down. Kind of started defeating us. They played body, they finished checks. Like Coach said, they boxed out in front of the net. They played a physical game, and that started slowing us down.”
Koch scored his 30th goal of the year early in the third period to make it a 4-1 lead for the Crusaders.
The teams exchanged goals in the final minutes, with Andrew Ostermann capping the scoring for Notre Dame and Halbleib doing the same for Edgewood.
The Crusaders scored five or more goals in seven straight games to end the season.
It was more than enough against the Tritons, even though Notre Dame had scored four or more goals in seven straight games. It included eight in a state semifinal win over Wausau West on Friday.
The Tritons had chances but just couldn’t get much past Edgewood goalie Hayden Reuhl after the early score. He made 24 saves.
Edgewood outshot Notre Dame 29-26.
“I’m just proud of our team that we stuck through,” Thomas said. “Kept going through everything.”
Notre Dame graduates eight seniors but returns its top two scorers next season in Thomas and freshman forward Tripp Wroblewski.
The Tritons were making their seventh state appearance in the last eight years, and nobody would be surprised to see them do it again next season.
“I just told the guys, and again, I don’t know how long this is going to sting, I don’t know how long they are going to be hurting,” Szkodzinski said. “It’s probably going to be different for different guys, but there is not a young man in that room that didn’t develop and grow this year. Not one guy. Our program prides itself on developing players on and off the ice, from our new freshmen that came in to our captains.
“There has been huge maturity, huge growth throughout the year. For that, I am super proud of these guys.”
