BOSTON – As Sunday’s Division I boys hockey final headed to overtime, Pope Francis coach Brian Foley was confident the game would come down to sophomore defenseman Luke Latulippe.
“Before the first overtime started he said you’re going to be the one who gets the game winner,” Latulippe said of Foley. “I just laughed.”
Though Latulippe thought it was a funny notion that he would score just his second career goal to win a state championship, Foley emphasized that he was serious.
One minute and eight seconds into the game’s second overtime, Foley was also proven right as Latulippe bagged the game-winning goal to make it 2-1 and give the Cardinals their first state title since 2023.
“As soon as I got the puck I just didn’t want it to bounce over my stick, I didn’t want it to get blocked, in three-on-three you can’t have anyone behind you,” Latulippe said. “I was just trying to get it to the net and I couldn’t believe it went in.
“I wouldn’t believe you if you told me this. I have one goal all year, I couldn’t believe my second was going to be here, the biggest spot of my life.”
“He’s just such a hard worker and as a sophomore, first-year guy playing for us, we didn’t know what we were going to get out of him and he had such a phenomenal year,” Foley said of Latulippe. “Great to see him finish that.”
Preparing for Sunday’s contest, Foley knew that it could end up as a dog fight with the Pioneers.
Every postseason match that Saint John’s played on the way to TD Garden was decided by one score. Two of those contests went to overtime.
“As I was watching film, it’s just one overtime after another, that’s a sign of a really good team and a really tough team,” Foley said of Saint John’s. “It’s not too surprising that this game goes to overtime with two evenly matched teams. We’re just lucky to come out on the right side of it.”
In the opening period, the two sides were deadlocked. Neither squad could find a convincing edge and the scoresheet backed it up. Pope outshot Saint John’s just 9-8 in the opening scoreless frame.
In the second period however, each team found some scoring luck. Five minutes into the frame, it was senior Wolfgang Zinger who netted a rebound to give the Cardinals the lead in his final high school game.
“It’s the perfect way to go out, it’s unreal,” Zinger said. “Coach always says that feeling of euphoria is the best feeling in the world and it is.”
The Pioneers however were right with them. Two minutes later, Sahvy Aldino let a shot fly from the neutral zone that pinged off the bottom of the crossbar and into the bottom of the net to tie it 1-1.
The remainder of the second period, however, was dominated by Pope, but the Cardinals couldn’t get another shot past Colin McCarthy in the frame.
In the third period, it was much of the same. Pope outshot Saint John’s 12-5 in the third but once again McCarthy was perfect, stopping everything that came his way to keep the game tied after regulation.
Though they couldn’t win the game before overtime, the Cardinals knew they were controlling the play and would find the decider.
“Just that we’re all over them, we’re the better team,” Latulippe said of the mentality after the third period. “They won’t be able to keep up with us with more ice, if we just keep up. They’ll get a couple chances but we just have to stay guys back and don’t give up anything in the end and we’ll be the team that wins.”
To add the extra bit of motivation, Foley reminded his players one last time what they would be playing for in overtime.
“It’s the last period, the next goal wins, and it’s a forever thing right?” Foley said of his message to his team. “We talked about the banner and it’s like, you’re either going to be champs or finalists and that lives forever. So they really took that to heart and played really, really well in both overtimes.”
After Pope dominated the final 20 minutes of the contest, Saint John’s evened up the play in overtime. Every test that the Pioneers sent the Cardinals’ way however was met expertly. Goaltender George Ramsey stopped all six shots he saw in the first overtime and the rest of the defense did their job in front of him.
“Our battle cry was shut them out, shut them out, shut them out, and that’s all week,” Foley said. “We wanted to be able to come out on a 1-0 win and we felt our best chance was just to play desperate defense, block shots, and just lay it all out there.
“When it was 1-1 we just started again, shut them out from here, shut them out from here. A lot of players made a lot of good plays, the play by Mason Thayer to break up that two-on-one in the first overtime was incredible. Multiple blocked shots, great saves by George (Ramsey). Everybody laid it on the line and we needed every ounce of it.”
With the defense doing its job, Latulippe found his chance to win the game and hand the Cardinals their first title in three years.
Just one Pope player on Sunday was on that championship winning team in 2023, Matteo Cuccovia.