PLYMOUTH — Last year, high school hockey fans were treated to a historic eight-overtime Division 1 state final between Orchard Lake St. Mary’s and Marquette.

This year, fans once again were treated to a special title game, albeit for a different reason.

That reason was the sheer and utter brilliance of Novi Detroit Catholic Central.

Wowing an overflow crowd at Compuware Arena with a dominant performance, the Shamrocks claimed their ninth boys hockey state title in school history and first since 2005 with a 7-0 shellacking of Howell, a team that entered the game with a 25-3-1 record, but was turned into minced meat by the Shamrocks.

The title marked the first team state championship in any sport for Catholic Central since the school moved to its new campus in Novi in 2005 and ended what in Catholic Central’s eyes was a long four-year title drought in hockey.

“People have kept asking us if we’ve fallen off and I’ve kept telling people we hadn’t fallen off,” Catholic Central head coach Todd Johnson said. “High school (hockey) just keeps getting better and better. We had a lot of good fortune when we won some of those (titles). We won a lot of close games. We don’t take them for granted. These guys are so generally thrilled and so excited. None of these guys have ever won a state title.”

After seeing his team get rocked by Catholic Central in Friday’s semifinals, 6-0, Marquette head coach Joe Papin likened Catholic Central to a team in a junior league.

With the display Catholic Central put on against Howell, that point is hard to argue.

Catholic Central outshot Howell, 35-5, and didn’t even allow the Highlanders to record a shot on goal until there was 11:33 left in the second period.

Another example of just how dominant the Shamrocks were came in the first period when Howell was on a power play.

Despite having the man-advantage, Howell didn’t record a shot, iced the puck three times and spent most of the power play in its own zone fending off Catholic Central forwards.

The win by the Shamrocks marked a terrific day for the state’s most decorated hockey programs.

Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood, Trenton and Catholic Central entered the day having won the most state titles in state history, and each added to their total.

Trenton won its 12th championship in Division 2 and Cranbrook won its 14th title in the Division 3 game before Catholic Central took the ice and won its ninth crown.

“A lot of us have been working our whole hockey careers for a feeling like this,” Catholic Central senior Tony Thomas said. “To get it in our senior year, there’s no better way to go out.”

The Shamrocks got just the kind of start they wanted, scoring two goals in the first 3:50 of the game to take a 2-0 lead.

The first goal came courtesy of Thomas, who skated in on a two-on-one and beat Howell goalie Tyler Keough to the glove side to give the Shamrocks a 1-0 lead just 41 seconds into the game.

Catholic Central then took a 2-0 lead with 11:10 remaining in the first on a goal by senior Kyle Nelson, who went towards the net on a developing two-on-one, took a pass from senior David Swierszczyk and slipped the puck underneath Keough and into the net.

“Once we got a couple of goals, nothing was going to stop us,” Catholic Central senior Dan Brown said. “We were too motivated.”

Catholic Central took a 3-0 lead with 6:43 left in the second on a goal by senior defenseman Nick Gatt, who fired a low shot from the point through a beautiful screen of Keough by junior teammate Chris Waterstreet and into the net.

The Shamrocks took a 4-0 lead 31 seconds in the third period on a rebound goal by junior Brent Darnell, went up 5-0 with 9:35 left on a tally by junior Eric Winkler off an assist from Waterstreet, took a 6-0 lead with 5:46 remaining on two-man advantage goal by junior Brad Wilhelm and then finished out the scoring with 1:02 left on another goal by Wilhelm.  

Catholic Central ended the season with 13 straight wins and finished 25-3-2.

During its playoff run, the Shamrocks only gave up two goals and recorded five shutouts.

“We were dominant,” Johnson said. “We just played great hockey.”



Contact Keith Dunlap at keith.dunlap@oakpress.com