A terrific Cinderella story came to an end on Sunday, as the Eastchester/Tuckahoe/Bronxville/Edgemont hockey team lost to a juggernaut Suffern squad 5-1 in the Section I finals. But despite falling short of a Div. 1 championship, the Eagles’ run to the title game demonstrated the importance of peaking at the right time and set the groundwork for what could be a bright future for the ETBE program.
The Eagles finished the regular season with a record of 8-11, earning a No. 11 seed in the Div. 1 tourney. ETBE head coach Steve Forzaglia felt his team’s record did not reflect its talent level, however, and the Eagles proved him right, scoring playoff upsets against Lakeland-Panas, Scarsdale and Mamaroneck to advance to the finals.
“I knew coming into the year that we had a good returning team and a lot of the freshmen we had came around quicker than I had hoped,” Forzaglia said. “And once you get to the postseason, a lot of times it depends on your seed. Once we were able to get past that first game, we sort of got on a roll.”
The Eagles’ resurgence was tied to the play of junior netminder JP Rosabella, who dazzled in the postseason, particularly in the team’s semifinal and championship contests. Rosabella authored a 37-save shutout against Mamaroneck on Feb. 27, before turning in a remarkable performance in a losing effort on March 2 in which he turned away 53 shots in the team’s 5-1 loss.
“JP is always competitive, he doesn’t like it when he gets scored on even in practice, so I wasn’t entirely surprised to see the way he played down the stretch,” Forzaglia said. “But he was making some saves that I’ll still have to go back and watch on video because I’m not entirely sure how he made them right now.”
Even Rosabella’s brilliance couldn’t propel the Eagles past Suffern, however, as the top-seeded team in New York State was ultimately able to overcome the hot goaltender.
“You come into the game hearing about how good they are, the best team in the state, so you know they are going to have firepower,” Forzaglia said. “But we felt Mamaroneck was that good and Scarsdale was that good, so if we could stay with them, we could have a shot.”
Tom McCarren led the way for the Mounties with a hat trick.
Now, with the season over, Forzaglia and the Eagles will look toward next winter as they try to replicate their late-season playoff run. With most of the team returning—including Rosabella—the head coach believes that ETBE has the pieces in place for another successful season.
“I think they saw what it takes to be successful in the playoffs, and hopefully we can find that style of play a little bit earlier next year,” he said. “But I want them to understand that this doesn’t just happen every year and this year there were something like 20 other teams who would have done anything to get where we were.”
