St. Mary's Gaels won their 4th straight New York State High School Hockey Championship by defeating Lancaster (Buffalo) 11-5 last weekend in Rochester. This was also the 7th state championship in eight years for the Gaels.

In the first game of the tournament, the Gaels came out firing on all cylinders as they riddled MaryVale (Buffalo) with 73 shots on goal. Phil Talia got the scoring started on assists from Billy Murray and Chris Schultz. Billy Murray then added one of his won on an assist from Jim Gehring. Gehring then scored the next two goals as the Taglia-Gehring-Murray line accounted for the first four Gael goals. Ryan Cruthers, Steve Rios, Brian Dobler (2) and Pat Oliveto also scored, as did Gehring who had the hat trick. Matt Gilroy had three assists, as did Billy Murray.

The Gaels next played John Jay from Newburgh. The line of Cruthers-Gartman and Purslow accounted for five goals in the 12-3 victory. The Gaels outshot John Jay 55-27. Also scoring for the Gaels were Doremus with two and Steve Pfeiffer, Jason Deluca, Billy Murray, Brian Dobler and Phil Taglia each tagged one. Matt Perullo and Josh Rourke again shared the duties in the net.

St. Mary's and Lancaster (Buffalo) both had two wins in the first round and this set up a showdown for the #1 seed. The teams played each other in the 2001 State Finals with St. Mary's winning in a sudden death overtime. This year the Gaels were ready for the challenge. Only 18 seconds into the game, Andy Gartman took a Rich Purslow feed to make the score 1-0. Later Pat Oliveto made a cross ice pass to spring Purslow down the wing. Ten seconds later Purslow scored on passes from Ryan Cruthers and Andy Gartman. The Lancaster Redskins never recovered from their slow start. Billy Murray and Rich Purslow made it 4-0 at the end of the second period. The rough stuff started and after things settled down, Gartman and A.J. Ajudua finished off the scoring with third period goals. Pat Oliveto and Ryan Cruthers had three assists each. Josh Rourke stopped 23 of the 24 shots he faced.

The 3-0 preliminary record game the Gaels the #1 seed in the semifinal game on Sunday. St. Mary's rival, St. Anthony's (Suffolk County Champs) also ended the preliminary round 3-0. At that time, it was hoped that these Long Island rivals would face each other in the finals.

St. Mary's played Orchard Park (Buffalo) in the semifinals on Sunday. The Orchard Park goalie was the best the Gales had faced all year. The Gaels threw everything at Kyle Gunn-Taylor from Orchard Park except the kitchen sink and he stopped all 34 shots the Gaels had over the first two periods. With the score 1-0 in favor of Orchard Park in the last period, the fans were waiting for an upset. The Quakers had several chances to score late in the game but freshman goalie Josh Rourke stopped all attempts, giving the Gales a chance to win. However, it didn't look good for St. Mary's on the face off with 1:55 left in the game. Brian Dobler took the puck in his own end, skated it into the Orchard Park end and put a perfect pass to freshman sniper, Rich Purslow's stick for a one timer shot and goal sending the game into overtime. The bench and Gael fans erupted as the game ended in a 1-1 tie. With 1:40 gone in overtime, Ryan Cruthers put a nice pass on Purslow's stick and he found the back of the net with the game winner. It was a very emotional game and the Gaels showed tremendous maturity when it was needed to keep focused.

Coach Henry Lazar worked hard all year getting the Gaels ready for a rematch of last year's finals against Lancaster. The Redskins scored just 16 seconds in to the game, but 30 seconds later Rich Purslow scored on a Cruthers pass to tie the game. Rich Purslow, Ryan Cruthers, Andy Gartman, and Jason DeLuca all scored in the first period to give the Gaels a 6-3 lead. The only goal of the second period was by the Redskins and at the end of the second period, the score was 6-4. The third period was ready to begin. It was just 17 minutes away from a championship ring for the Gaels. But Lancaster's goal at the 14-minute mark put a damper on their hopes. However the defense under Pat Oliveto and Brian Dobler took over the game. Matched against the Redskin's first line, they shut the door on their opportunities. Dobler gave the Gaels a 3-goal cushion. Ryan Cruthers and Dan Doremus scored shorthanded goals and Andy Gartman netted the final goal of his high school career in the 11-5 victory. The Gaels outshot Lancaster 35-20. For the Gaels in was their seventh state championship in the last eight years. The team wound up the season with 30-1-1 and has gone 35-0 in the states in the last seven appearances.