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WORCESTER — Holy Cross freshman forward Matt Kursonis of West Boylston had about 50 family members cheering on him and his HC hockey teammates during last weekend’s Atlantic Hockey America semifinals at the Hart Center.
Kursonis had to trim his guest list to eight lucky kin for Saturday’s highly anticipated AHA final. The game sold out in two minutes after tickets went on sale Tuesday afternoon.
“That’s exciting for us,” said HC senior defenseman Matt Shatsky, who also was sorting out his invitations to the game earlier this week, “and it’s going to give us a ton of energy to start.”
The top-seeded Crusaders, who are seeking their first AHA championship and automatic NCAA Tournament berth since 2006, take on third-seeded Bentley at 7 p.m.
“Playing on the national stage was a goal of ours and something that hasn’t been done in this program in almost 20 years,” Kursonis said. “I think the whole idea of playing on a national stage and hanging a banner in this arena that shows how special this team is is something everyone wants to do. We have to keep taking it one game at a time.”
The Crusaders (24-13-2) went 2-1 against Bentley (22-14-2) during the regular season.
Bentley junior goalie Connor Hasley has posted 11 shutouts, including a 3-0 win over HC in the second-to-last game of the regular season and three clean sheets in the playoffs. The Falcons swept Canisius and Sacred Heart, respectively, in their best-of-three quarterfinal and semifinal series.
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Holy Cross coach Bill Riga expects a fast, tenacious, physical showdown on Saturday.
“Our mindset,” Riga said, “is going to be, ‘Stay in the moment. Don’t think about the result. Focus on each shift, each period, each situation. Get your job done, and then when we’re done, we’re done, and we’ll see where we’re at.’
“Once you start thinking about, ‘We need to win, we need to win, we need to win,’ we’re not going to be focused on the task at hand,” Riga said, “and Bentley is too good.”
On Tuesday, Riga earned AHA Coach of the Year honors, senior Liam McLinskey AHA Player of the Year, Forward of the Year and scoring champion accolades, and senior Thomas Gale AHA Goaltender of the Year honors.
Holy Cross ranked No. 19 in the latest USCHO poll.
In the AHA quarterfinals, the Crusaders closed out AIC with a 4-3 overtime win in Game 3 and opened the semifinals with a 3-2 OT victory against Army.
“That win gave us energy, gave us momentum and gave us the opportunity to put them away at home in two games,” Riga said.
HC beat the Black Knights, 5-1, the next night to sweep the series.
McLinskey led the Crusaders with three points in the victory and became the first HC player to reach the 50-point mark in a season since Tyler McGregor in 2005-06.
Kursonis has five points in the playoffs.
Like Kursonis, who missed 13 games due to a torn meniscus, Shatsky was sidelined for a chunk of the season after undergoing surgery for a broken wrist.
The return of Shatsky, a captain, has meant added leadership, steadiness and defensive depth for the postseason run.
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“When he came back, it added comfortability,” Kursonis said. “He advocates for everyone doing well and making sure we’re the best team possible. He’s a big reason we’re at this point.”
HC’s seniors, who will play their final home game Saturday, played a major part in the program’s resurgence the last four seasons. The Crusaders are making their second AHA final appearance in the last two years.
Recovering and returning from his wrist injury was a long process for Shatsky, but watching his teammates win a record-setting 16 straight AHA games was certainly uplifting.
“As a player, you want to be part of those things going on,” Shatsky said, “but at the same time, you can’t help but sit back and smile and see how far the team has come since the start of the season and my first year. It was cool for me to see from the outside even though it was a tough time to be away from the guys.”
After beating Army to advance, the Crusaders spent the rest of Saturday together.
“All we talked about,” Shatsky said, “was, ‘We have to get this done.’ It comes down to one game, 60 minutes. All the guys are super fired up, and so is Bentley. It’s going to come down to who executes better for those 60 minutes.”
—Contact Jennifer Toland at [email protected]. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, @JenTolandTG.
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Holy Cross hockey ready for Bentley in AHA final, before sellout crowd at Hart Center
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