Adrian Claims Another Harris Cup In Dominating Fashion

ADRIAN, Mich. – Although Adrian College has made it look easier than it should the past two seasons, it’s not easy to be hoisting the Harris Cup after the final horn blows in the postseason.

But the Bulldogs (23-4-2) were at it again Saturday night, topping Aurora University (19-8-2) by a final score of 8-1 in front of a sold-out crowd of 1,173 at Arrington Ice Arena to claim the NCHA Tournament title and the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

That fact is not lost on head coach Adam Krug, who knew this season was going to be a significant challenge for his program after winning the NCAA National Championship a year ago.

Following a 3-0-1 start to the regular season in non-conference action, the Bulldogs opened NCHA play just 2-2 after the first two weekends of conference play, splitting with both Marian University and Trine University.

“It was a lot harder than I thought it would be,” Krug said. “Even with the Harris Cup, there’s no guarantee that you are going to win it – especially in this conference with a lot of good teams. My first two years as the coach we won, and then we didn’t win for three years. So I figured coming off the National Championship, I knew it would be hard but you don’t realize … and I think maybe some of us took it for granted. Our returning guys probably forgot a little bit how hard we worked last year and the new guys thought they could throw an Adrian jersey on and it would come easy. I say that half-jokingly, because I know they want to leave their mark on the program. But we went through it a little bit in November and put our nose to the grindstone and re-learned how to work. Credit to our guys, they are bought-in on it and it paid off again.”

It paid off in the form of another convincing postseason victory, seeing Adrian get off to a 3-0 lead and then blow it open with three goals in a span of 1:45 on the clock in the second period in a contest that pitted two of the top teams in the NCAA – the Bulldogs came in ranked No. 3 in the USCHO.com Top 15 while the Spartans were ranked No. 8.

“This never gets old,” Krug said from the postgame on-ice celebration. “The Harris Cup has become a very special thing in the city of Adrian and at Adrian College, and certainly within our hockey program. You can’t take it for granted, but it’s pretty awesome when it does happen.”

Scoreless in the first period, the initial power-play opportunity went the way of the Spartans. After AC was able to kill that off, Ayodele Adeniye found the back of the net quickly at the 4:46 mark to calm a lot of nerves on the home bench.

“One of the things that special teams does, it can score a goal for you; it can put you down a goal,” Krug said. “But more than anything, you just want to have that momentum. To not get scored on in that moment (when the score was 0-0), it’s big. You kill it off, you go get a goal, and I think that set the stage for the group in establishing some momentum.”

Adrian went on to make it 3-0 at the end of the first, getting goals from Jaden Shields and Mathew Rehding to add to its advantage. But, Krug knew nothing was determined at that point.

“Last week, they were down 2-0 to St. Norbert (in the semifinals) and won,” he said. “We talked about that as a group in the dressing room between periods that the game wasn’t over. That we had to go out and have a very good period.”

And have a good period they did.

It opened with a five-minute power play called on Aurora just 19 seconds into the period, but the Bulldogs could not find the back of the net despite six shots. With the major infraction behind them, the Spartans struck at the 9:40 mark to breathe some life into the team behind a goal from Derrick Budz.

Adrian didn’t blink. The Bulldogs scored on the very next shift, getting that goal back just 49 seconds later behind a tally from Zachary Heintz. The crowd had barely sat back down when the lamp was lit again, seeing John Kaljian make it 5-1 just 1:23 later and Connor May with the absolute clincher 22 seconds later to make it 6-1 – all in a span of just 105 seconds on the clock.

“In getting that 5-minute, I think our guys just took for granted that we would score since our power play has been so dynamite,” Krug said. “We don’t score and you could feel that they had some momentum and they score and it goes 3-1. But to get the response that we did on the very next shift … they put Aurora in the blender a little bit and then after that it was kind of off to the races and you could feel the momentum on our side.”

Lost in the offensive explosion was a strong effort from the defense, with Nic Tallarico allowing just one goal in a brilliant 30-save performance – all coming against a Spartan team that averaged over four goals per-game coming into the title contest.

Ty Enns finished with a team-high three points on three assists, while six other players recorded two points – five finishing with one goal and one assist.

For the first time in league history, all six members of the NCHA All-Tournament Team were from the same team. Enns, Rehding, and Alesio Luciani were named the All-Tournament Team forwards while Chase Spencer and Shields were the All-Tournament defensemen. With four victories in the Harris Cup Playoffs, Tallarico was selected as the all-tournament goaltender and Luciani was named Tournament MVP after totaling 13 points (5G/8A) throughout the tournament.

The Bulldogs will await their opponent for the NCAA Tournament that will be announced on the NCAA DIII Men's Hockey Selection Show at 10:00 AM EST on Monday, March 6. To watch the selection show, go to www.NCAA.com.