Following their incredible 9-2-0 season and provisional state runner up title, the McLean/Chantilly (McTilly) hockey team looked forward to their next season expecting a similar dominance. Going into their first game against Gainesville, it looked that way with a 5-4 win and a game winning goal from senior assistant captain Brendan Wallace, but their following two games went awfully with a 1-11 loss to Herndon/South Lakes and a 1-7 loss to Madison.
Going into game four against Tuscarora/Loudoun, it looked like their luck might turn for the better. Even without senior captain and Delaware hockey commit Kacey Blum, the excitement was there.
However, In the opening minutes of the game, McTilly let Tuscarora/Loudoun get some good chances due to poor defensive positioning and multiple slips on the ice. The ice was a recurring issue throughout the game, resulting in sloppy play from many members of both teams.
“It’s like there’s baby oil on the ice,” senior defenseman Graham Stephens said.
The team was able to recover relatively quickly from their initial ineptitude, but it seemed as if all momentum was gone when Chantilly’s sophomore forward Mason Litzel was called for holding penalty three minutes in. Thankfully, the penalty killing unit stopped Tuscarora/Loudoun in their tracks. It didn’t matter for Tuscarora/Loudoun’s senior forward Ethan Maccormick though, as he scored less than a minute later with a shot up close.
Minutes after the first goal, Chantilly sophomore defenseman Ryan Brawley sent Tuscarora/Loudoun Junior Tucker Boos flying with a tripping penalty. This led to a power play goal from Ethan Maccormick, his second, making it 2-0 in favor of Tuscarora/Loudoun. McTilly was unable to bring the score closer before the end of the period, leaving a demoralizing 2-0 scoreline on the board.
The second period was where Tuscarora/Loudoun took it to the next level, as they managed 23 shots on target and five goals. Ethan Maccormick finished up his hat trick, and his brother, Junior Tristan Maccormick, added yet another hat trick, making the scoreline 6-0. McLean was unable to manage any offense to counter this barrage, with the Tuscarora/Loudoun defense holding McTilly to only six shots on target. Another goal from Tuscarora/Loudoun added to the pain of all McTilly fans in the stands, and the teams headed into the final period separated by seven goals.
By the third period, McTilly was playing for pride, and with a fourth goal from Tristan Maccormick, victory was even further out of reach. McTilly persevered however, with goals from Chantilly’s Litzel and junior forward Satvik Chandran making the score 2-8. These futile efforts were negated in their entirety as Ethan Maccormick and Boos etched two more goals into the books, ending the game 2-10 in favor of Tuscarora/Loudoun.
“We are going to just keep working really, really hard and try to always leave it on the ice,” McTilly head coach Ron Blum said. “At the end of the game, you can feel good about what you try to accomplish and just make sure that you don’t have any regrets.”
