When Caroline Rousseau jumped onto the ice midway through overtime just in time to see her Cheverus teammate, Joey Pompeo, chip the puck up the boards, she thought of a similar play earlier in the game.
“It happened to me earlier in the game, the exact same play, and I didn’t score on it. I knew I had to be the one to capitalize,” said Rousseau, a sophomore. “My coach, my dad (Cheverus coach Scott Rousseau), has been yelling at me all season to fake out the goalie because they can’t stop it. So I just went forehand-backhand, and it went in.”
Rousseau’s goal at 3:32 of overtime in the girls hockey state championship game Saturday afternoon at Troubh Ice Arena in Portland gave the Cheverus co-op team a 3-2 win over Brunswick and its third straight title.
The Stags (17-1-1) became the first Maine high school girls hockey team to win three consecutive championships. Girls hockey became an official Maine Principals’ Association sport in 2008-09. It was Cheverus’ fifth state title overall. Brunswick (16-5) was playing in its first state final.
“A lot of emotions right now,” Scott Rousseau said on the ice after the game. “Sometimes I’m harder on Caroline than anybody else, because I’ve always been so concerned with (playing) favorites. We’re very close. We spend a lot of time together. This is pretty special.”
It was a rare kind of win for Cheverus in that it was a comeback. Brunswick scored twice 29 seconds apart late in the second period to send the Stags to the locker room trailing 2-1.
Lucy Johnson said she and Zoey Radford, her fellow captain, spoke to the team, letting them know a full period was plenty of time for a comeback.
“Zoey (Radford) and I spoke up as captains, trying to tell everyone to stay positive … stay calm, because we still have another period,” Johnson said. “Our mindset was to take it like a normal game. Don’t let the emotions and the crowd get ahead of us.”
Johnson and Radford’s leadership stood out, Caroline Rousseau said. For both, Saturday’s win was their sixth state championship overall. Both were standout players on three state championship-winning field hockey teams.
“Lucy and Zoey, six state titles. That’s just such an unbelievable accomplishment, to win and be star players on six championship teams,” Scott Rousseau said.
Johnson gave Cheverus a 1-0 lead late in the second period, but the Dragons quickly answered. First, Solveig Ledwick scored seven seconds into a power play at 13:17. At 13:46, Gillian Countway poked a rebound past Cheverus goalie Ellie Skolnekovich (seven saves) for a 2-1 lead.
“It was good to see Gillian Countway get rewarded. She’s a motor for our team. She gets after the puck. … I think it could’ve gone either way. They battled and they showed they belonged here,” Brunswick coach Chris Ledwick said. “We never felt like we couldn’t play with them. The girls, they left it all on the ice. They looked good out there.”
Coach Rousseau usually has Johnson (29 goals) and his daughter (38 goals), the team’s top two scorers, on separate lines to make sure one was on the ice most of the game. In the third period, though, he looked for opportunities to get the tandem on the ice together.
“We’ve had long-term discussions as coaches, when do we put Caroline and Lucy together? What is the break-glass-in-case-of-emergency scenario? We found time on Lucy’s second goal where I got Caroline out there with her. On the third goal, too,” he said. “That gives Caroline the ability to not worry about defense. She can kind of cheat up the ice, knowing Lucy is playing center. Those two kids have just been stars all year long.”
Johnson’s second goal tied the game at 6:01 of the third period. It was much like her first, a shot from the right circle that beat Brunswick goalie Hensleigh Labonte (15 saves).
“I was trying to move the goalie. Both goals, I was coming from the middle and went outside, and she was tracking me. I just made sure the shot didn’t get blocked and made sure it was a good shot. I wasn’t thinking the first one was going to go in. I was a little shocked,” Johnson said.
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