Dionne 'Tremendous' in Championship Win (Prospects)
Mar. 12, 2010
Josh Dionne is a member of the GCG.
New England Hockey Journal
Avon Old Farms School defeated Northfield Mount Hermon in the 29th annual New England Prep School Ice Hockey Association Stuart/Corkery tournament by a 4-1 score at the Icenter in Salem, N.H., on Sunday.
The Winged Beavers got tremendous goaltending from senior Josh Dionne (Merrimack, N.H.) in all three playoff games, the senior playing a key role in knocking off higher-seeded teams Gunnery, and Noble and Greenough en route to the championship contest, the eighth in school history.
Up front, senior winger Mike Pereira (West Haven, Conn.) was as dominant an offensive player as any, racking up three goals and six points in the semi final and final games.
“I think we had great leadership with our captains Quinn Smith (Fairfield, Conn.) and K.J. Tiefenworth, and our seniors stepped up, and the guy who really supported us and backboned us was (Josh) Dionne, who was unbelievable,” Avon head coach John Gardner (South Windsor, Conn.) said after the game.
NMH played well in getting to the championship game, knocking off Westminster in overtime during the semifinal on Friday, and prior to that, upsetting the top-seed Kent School on the road in a 4-1 decisive win Wednesday night.
However, Avon’s talent and coaching proved to be too tough a hurdle to overcome for NMH.
Senior Nick Gordon got NMH on the board first, burying a Garrett McMullen pass upstairs over a helpless Dionne on a shorthanded 2-on-1 break to open up a 1-0 lead which held up through the game’s first 18 minutes.
Early in the second frame, Avon struck back when with Smith converted a rebound of Kyle Quick’s shot from the point while on the man advantage to even the teams up at one goal apiece.
NMH goaltender Branden Komm, who was excellent throughout the tournament, gave up a soft goal through his legs to Pereira from a sharp angle 26 seconds later, again on the power play after a quick holding call, making it 2-1 Avon. Komm would shut the door the rest of the period, making several sparkling stops in close as Avon crashed the net trying to add to the lead.
At the other end, Dionne was dialed in and stood tall, refusing to surrender any ground to an NMH attack that, while it may not have generated a lot of sustained pressure, tested the Avon goalie with some difficult shots.
Smith then tallied his second goal of the game, this one shorthanded, after Pereira streaked up the right wing boards, drew the NMH defender over to him, then slid a pass over to a wide-open Smith who slipped the puck to his backhand and then roofed it over Komm to make it 3-1, Avon.
Tiefenworth closed out the scoring at 13:50 of the third when he converted a Smith pass (with Pereira getting the secondary assist) to make it 4-1 and send the Avon students and boosters into delirium.
“I think every single one of our big players stepped up,” a hoarse Dionne exulted, amid the chaos and bedlam of a postgame celebration by players and students on the ice that would last more than 15 minutes after the final buzzer sounded and championship hardware presented. “I think every player stepped up. It was incredible. I’ve told everyone that I won in my sophomore year and there’s no feeling like it and now everyone can experience it. It’s incredible.”
For Avon to overcome a .500 start to the season as late as Jan. 13, when the team was 5-5-1, made the triumph put an exclamation point on the players’ emotions as they embraced each other and their fellow students who swarmed onto the ice in kind.
“We thought 10 games into the season we were done because the new format this year; it’s so hard to make the playoffs,” said junior forward Connor Doyle (Avon, Conn.). “We got a gift at the end and we couldn’t let it go away. We just took it and it gave us a ton of momentum.”
Pereira, who was ranked as the 77th North American skater by the NHL’s Central Scouting Service for the 2010 draft, said, “Come Christmastime, we were all wondering what was going on because Avon has such a prestigious reputation,” he said. “We really pulled together as a team and believed in each other, and here we are right now … champions.”
Although the offense carried the day for Avon, Gardner made sure to give credit to his blueline corps, who effectively contained not only the NMH team, but a potent offensive threat from Nobles in the semifinal game, becoming the unsung heroes of this latest addition to Avon’s winning legacy.
“Any championship team starts with defense,” Gardner said. “I told them today that the team that played defense would win, and we played great defense.”
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