Eighteen months.
That’s how long Kent School and the rest of the NEPSAC hockey world had been waiting for a chance to vie for a championship after the shutdown of the 2020-21 campaign.
On March 6, that pandemic-induced journey finally came to an end as Dale Reinhardt’s second-seeded Lions defeated the No. 1 Brunswick Bruins, 4-2, in the NEPSAC Martin/Earl championship, securing the program’s second Large School trophy in its past three attempts.
“It’s great. I’m just so happy for our seniors,” said Reinhardt, who led the Lions to a 17-8-0 regular-season record and the brink of an Elite 8 playoff berth, before downing No. 6 Loomis Chaffee and No. 3 Phillips Exeter at home en route to the final on the road.
“There’s eight of them and they’ve all been with us for a different number of years but they all went through last year together and they all stuck through it. They all had opportunities to go elsewhere and pursue other things but it’s a really special group and they all really care about each other a lot.”
It’s one of the tightest groups he’s ever coached, added Reinhardt, who is coming off his ninth season behind the Connecticut prep school’s bench.
“We’ve always had good team chemistry and guys that get along and respect each other, but this team really likes each other. It’s been a special opportunity for me to get to coach this group.”
The Lions relied on that close-knit cast of seniors all season. In the championship game, it was no different.
Cole Watson's two goals in the final against Brunswick, including the game-winner, made a memory for his coach.
“I was so proud of him. To me, he was the best player on the ice,” Reinhardt said. “He had some ups and downs over his time here at Kent but he is an extremely effective power forward, and he’s just a heart-and-soul guy.
“To see him step up in such a big way to end his Kent career, and really be the leader of the team in that game, was really special.”
Sophomore standout goaltender Aidan Hopewell, who split time with ’04 junior Harrison Fogel for the bulk of the season, got the nod in the quarterfinal and never looked back. The ’05 netminder allowed just five goals and made a combined 84 stops in the Lions’ three-game postseason run, bolstering his .923 save percentage on the season in 925 minutes played. Fogel finished the year with a .907 save percentage in 600 minutes played.
“He was excellent down the stretch,” Reinhardt said of Hopewell, a native of Ashburn, Va. “His future is really bright.
“I do want to certainly give a nod to Harrison, who had an excellent season. He won some huge games for us. I think of the Avon Christmas Classic … we were the only team to beat Avon (Old Farms) for about 2.5 months and he was incredible in that game, and he also had a win over Salisbury early in the season. So, he had a fantastic year and he’s a great goaltender in his own right.”
Senior Jake Kraft (Rochester, N.Y.), the other assistant captain, scored five times (including four goals against Exeter) in the playoffs, adding to his team-high totals in goals (25) and points (44) in 28 games played.
Captain Dante Palombo (White Plains, N.Y.) finished the season in a close second place with 22 goals and 40 points, while fellow ’03 seniors Max Resnick, Geno McEnery ( a recent Providence College commit) and Michael Hurst accounted for 30-plus points of their own.
“Because of the schedule we play and (the fact that) we only play 25 games … we don’t have guys that score 20 goals very often,” Reinhardt said. “Mike Posma (Pomona, N.Y.) did it and he’s at Boston College, but the guys that did it before him were here before I was here … The fact that both of those guys did it, and Jake Kraft had 25, that’s unheard of.
“Those two guys made coaching easy. We could put them on different lines with the depth that we had. It’s hard to stop when you have guys who are that dynamic on two separate lines.”
Behind the veteran forwards, Joey Sciabarra (Plainview, N.Y.), one of just two senior ‘D’ on the team, led the way for a youthful blueline group, which was comprised of six sophomores and freshmen out of the eight defenseman, including impactful ’06s Jacob Ingstrup and Alex Bales (East Amherst, N.Y.).
“Coming into the season, we knew we would score a lot, but we didn’t know what we would look like defensively. We had a returning goaltender, but he hadn’t played a game for us, and we had an incoming kid who we knew we had really high expectations for, but it’s a big jump from U-15 to prep.
“The big question was how quickly those guys could transition to our game, and they did it seamlessly and fast and impressively. Their transition to playing key roles and doing it in an impactful way was paramount in our success.”
It’s been a long road from fall 2020 to now. At last, the Lions can put the past year-and-a-half to rest. As champions.
“It’s normally a quick season and it all kind of rushes at you, but this was really 18 months in the making,” Reinhardt said. “This group was basically playing for this year since two Septembers ago.
“They went through some challenges that I can only imagine how I would have responded to as a high school student and that is, I think, what makes this even more special … that these guys stuck through it and got the opportunity to kind of validate their experience over these last 18 months.
“I’m just grateful to be a part of it.”
