Interview and photos by Mike Carney.
Three times this season, Notre Dame played Geneseo and lost, but there was really only one game that truly mattered, and that was the fourth one.
The Fighting Irish won that game, 2-0, to capture the Class B Section V championship in hockey.
"Coming into this game, I think the kids were anxious for one last shot, one last shot," said Head Coach Marc Staley. "I said, 'The good thing about the first three losses is no one handed a trophy out after those games, but they're handing one out tonight boys and you can erase the demons with one good effort.' "
That effort put the emphasis on defense. Notre Dame has scored prodigiously all season long, but Staley said he recognized that Geneseo goalie Morgan Brown is the best player in the league.
"We knew that weren't going to score four or five goals against them, so we thought we had to play a crazy good defensive game," Staley said.
H. Toivainen scored the game-winning goal in the first period at 8:28. The second goal was by B. Moscicki on an empty net late in the game. The MVP was Toivainen.
