For the first time in 15 years, the Long Island Championship brought the champions of Nassau and Suffolk together on the same sheet of ice, and it took double overtime to settle it. When it was over, Bellmore-Merrick skated off Northwell Health Ice Center’s Al Arbour Rink as Long Island champions, 3-2 winners over St. Anthony’s on Lucas Lucchi’s goal 1:47 into the second overtime.
The NYIHSHL champions looked in control for much of the night. They built a 2-0 lead in the second period on Nicholas Drogan’s power-play strike and Collin Roulston’s follow-up, and carried it toward the third. But St. Anthony’s, the SCHSHL champion, refused to go quietly. Anthony Cutalo pulled the Friars within one early in the third, and Joseph Rocca tied it with 2:38 to play to force the extra sessions.
The first overtime solved nothing. Then Lucchi ended it, taking a feed from Brandon Richardson and beating Jordan Valcich early in the second OT. In the other crease, Joseph Braglia was the difference for Bellmore-Merrick, holding off St. Anthony’s across more than 76 minutes of hockey to preserve the win.
The result crowned Bellmore-Merrick on the biggest stage Long Island high school hockey has to offer, in a Nassau-versus-Suffolk title game the Island had not staged in a decade and a half.
