In front of a raucous and near capacity crowd at Dublin Iceland, the Dublin Hockey team won its first championship since 2016 after defeating De La Salle 5-1. It was the first defeat of the season for the Spartans, a team which defeated the Gaels 6-3 in their only other encounter earlier in the season.
William Wadlington led the way for Dublin by scoring a hat trick, while the Gaels’ leading scorer on the season Russell Louie contributed two goals of his one. Jonathan Adrian had three assists while Brian Haapanen added two more to lead the offensive attack.
Dublin’s defense was stellar throughout the night, holding firm on the blue line and ensuring that most of the action occurred in their attacking zone. The only goal they relinquished was with 0:27 remaining in the final period after the outcome was no longer in doubt. It was actually a defensive struggle most of the night as Dublin scored just one goal in the 1st period and one goal in the 2nd period before breaking three with 3 goals in the final period.
In other postseason action this week, both Baseball and Softball lost their North Coast Section 1st round contests with Baseball dropping a 7-0 decision to top seeded Granada while Softball fell to #7 Liberty by a score of 9-0. Despite the losses, both programs achieved milestones this season.
For Softball, the team posted more wins this season than anytime since 2014. The program is also sending a record number of players from its graduating senior class to compete at the collegiate level.
For Baseball, this was the first time in the Maxpreps era (dating back to 2004) that Dublin qualified for the NCS playoffs in 3 consecutive seasons as the Gaels qualified in both 2022 and 2023. Considering the success the program enjoyed at both the Junior Varsity and Freshman levels, the opportunity to build on that success definitely looks strong.
