“I’m just really, really proud of our players, proud of our team. I’m proud of our leadership, our senior leadership,” Stevenson head coach David Mitchell said. “It’s a thrill to be here and to get back here. These guys wanted to be here and they wanted to make sure to not let it end here.”
Trailing 3-0 in the second period, the Warriors fought back to make it close. Isaiah House stepped off the bench and stepped into a pass from Davis Belt, blasting a shot in from the right circle to get Brother Rice on the board with 8:18 to play in the middle period. The Warriors got even closer when Belt snapped a shot through a crowd in front with 6:13 remaining in the game, cutting the deficit to a single goal at 3-2.
But Stevenson restored its two-goal advantage less than a minute later when Connor Buchanan scored on a two-on-one, and the Spartans were able to see the game off from there with the help of a couple more late goals, including an empty-netter.
Brother Rice went on to dominate the period territorially and statistically – outshooting the Spartans 9-3 in the period. But for all of that, the Warriors struggled to create quality scoring chances, and Stevenson escaped the first period still leading 1-0.
