St. Thomas repeats as Division II Champion
By Tim Haslam
(Photo Credit Ben Haslam)
Commerce City, Colorado (May 15, 2010) – The No. 1 St. Thomas Tommies beat the No. 3 Utah Valley Wolverines on Saturday in the MCLA Division II National Championship game by the score of 12-9. With the victory, St. Thomas won it’s second National Championship in two years.
“It feels great,” said St. Thomas Head Coach Pete Moosbrugger. “There was a lot more pressure on us this year because everyone knows who you are.”
Utah Valley pressured St. Thomas for the entire game and was one of two teams to play within 4 goals of the Tommies.
St. Thomas scored first in the game, on a goal by Joe Costello just a minute into the contest. Utah Valley answered back with two goals within 50 second of each other to take a one goal lead. St. Thomas went on a three goal run with two goals from Tony Sadder and Costello. The Tommies never looked back, taking a 5-3 lead after the first quarter.
“We just didn’t run our game plan,” said Utah Valley Head Coach Kevin Perkins. “It’s plain and simple, our offense didn’t get our shots.”
It was a game of runs, however, only St. Thomas was running. Utah Valley scored first in the second quarter but St. Thomas answered with another three goal run before Utah Valley netted two goals three minutes apart and go into halftime with the score of 8-6 in favor of St. Thomas.
St. Thomas started the third quarter with a two goal run to take another four goal lead. Utah Valley wouldn’t give up though and scored a goal to cut the lead to three goals going into the fourth quarter.
Utah Valley went on a two goal run late in the game to bring the lead within two. With 1:17 left in the game, Utah Valley worked the ball around but couldn’t get a good luck and eventually turned the ball over but St. Thomas gave the ball right back and gave the Wolverines a fast break, but St. Thomas goalie Tom Thone made a huge save to preserve the St. Thomas lead which turned into the win.
St. Thomas was lead by Sadder who had 3 goals and 1 assist. Utah Valley was lead by Tyler Spendlove who had 2 goals and 1 assist.
“We knew that if we played our team scheme, we would like the outcome,” said Moosbrugger.
St. Thomas finished the year with a 17-0 record including the UMLL playoffs and the MCLA Championship Tournament.
