{"id":23549,"date":"2017-03-24T19:07:21","date_gmt":"2017-03-25T00:07:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/?p=23549"},"modified":"2017-06-29T20:52:30","modified_gmt":"2017-06-30T01:52:30","slug":"johnsons-first-goal-of-season-lifts-trinity-over-st-norbert-into-national-championship-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/2017\/03\/24\/johnsons-first-goal-of-season-lifts-trinity-over-st-norbert-into-national-championship-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Johnson's first goal of season lifts Trinity over St. Norbert into national championship game"},"content":{"rendered":"

[photoshelter-gallery g_id=”G0000JLpTbBDQZgs” g_name=”20170324-Trinity-St-Norbert-AngeloLisuzzo” f_show_caption=”t” f_show_slidenum=”t” img_title=”casc” pho_credit=”iptc” f_link=”t” f_bbar=”t” fsvis=”f” width=”500″ height=”375″ bgcolor=”#AAAAAA” bgtrans=”t” btype=”old” bcolor=”#CCCCCC” crop=”f” trans=”xfade” tbs=”4000″ f_ap=”t” linkdest=”c” f_fullscreen=”f” f_constrain=”f” twoup=”f” f_topbar=”f” f_bbarbig=”” f_htmllinks=”f” f_enable_embed_btn=”f” f_show_watermark=”f” f_send_to_friend_btn=”f” f_smooth=”f” f_mtrx=”f” f_up=”f” target=”_self” wmds=”llQ6QNgpeC.p1Ucz7U.f0Meq6hKKHa2XlPLfudoyn7YX3OpI2D_JKG0bZVYOgqQqiTUV5g–” ]<\/strong><\/p>\n

UTICA, N.Y. — <\/strong>Trinity’s Sam Johnson scored zero goals this season. Until tonight.<\/p>\n

Johnson’s goal at 18:26 of the second period proved to be the winner in the Division III national semifinal game as Trinity defeated St. Norbert, 3-2, to send the Bantams to their second national championship game in three years.<\/p>\n

“I saw Ty (Whitney) go around the net,” Johnson said. “I shouted for the puck. He found me pretty easy. I put it in the net short side.”<\/p>\n

Johnson jumped into the play from his right defensive position when the sea parted on his side, leaving him wide open.<\/p>\n

“I don’t know what it was that drew guys away from me,” he said.<\/p>\n

Johnson ended up with the puck above the dot, wound up, and blasted a shot over St. Norbert goalie T.J. Black’s glove.<\/p>\n

“The third goal was a bit of a back breaker,” St. Norbert coach Tim Coghlin said. “They jammed the wall nicely. They make the goal line play. We got sloppy in the D-zone and lost our positioning and had no response coming to the puck.”<\/p>\n

This gave Trinity the 3-2 lead, which they had to hold on to for the entire third period.<\/p>\n

“That’s a very good hockey team we were fortunate to beat,” Trinity coach Matt Greason said. “We bent and bent, but didn’t break.”<\/p>\n

“The game was what we expected,” Coghlin said. “Trinity is an extremely good transitional team. It ended up being more of a transition game than a cycle game, which we would have preferred. The transition game is more Trinity’s game.”<\/p>\n

The Green Knights scored first 13 minutes into the game when Jeremy Olinyk picked up a loose puck at the blue line, skated straight into the right slot, and put it by Alex Morin.<\/p>\n

Just over four minutes later, Trinity tied it on a power play. A quick cross-ice pass by Ryan Cole from right to left found Anthony Sabitsky open in the left circle, and his one-timer easily found the back of the net.<\/p>\n

The teams traded goals in the first half of the second period. This time it was Trinity scoring first when Ethan Holdaway one-timed a cross-crease pass from the backdoor.<\/p>\n

St. Norbert tied it on its one and only power play when Pijus Rulevicius banged it home from in front.<\/p>\n

Shortly after that goal, St. Norbert committed two successive penalties that overlapped by 21 seconds. Though Trinity came close, they could not capitalize.<\/p>\n

“People think if you don’t score on a five-on-three, it’s a failure,” Greason said. “However, we had a great chance.”<\/p>\n

On the flip side, the Green Knights were unable to take advantage of the potential momentum boost.<\/p>\n

“You’d like to see a push at that point,” admitted Coghlin. “Just to keep them off the scoreboard is important, too.”<\/p>\n

The free-flowing, fast-paced, and, at times, hard-hitting game was an entertaining affair. The last five minutes saw St. Norbert apply extreme pressure, and with their goalie pulled with 1:38 to play, the Green Knights nearly squeezed the tying goal in a few times.<\/p>\n

“We knew they were going to come on in the last five minutes,” Greason said.<\/p>\n

Morin made 34 saves for the win, including some spectacular ones, but it’s Johnson’s rare goal everyone will remember.<\/p>\n

Coghlin said, “Honestly, we’ve been on the other side of that. Guys like that who are your heart and soul and step up and score a goal like that says a lot about your hockey team. Hats off to Mr. Johnson, to Matt, and all the Trinity staff.”<\/p>\n

The senior has now scored three goals in his entire career. When asked if this one he will remember most, Johnson said, “I remember all my goals.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[photoshelter-gallery g_id=”G0000JLpTbBDQZgs” g_name=”20170324-Trinity-St-Norbert-AngeloLisuzzo” f_show_caption=”t” f_show_slidenum=”t” img_title=”casc” pho_credit=”iptc” f_link=”t” f_bbar=”t” fsvis=”f” width=”500″ height=”375″ bgcolor=”#AAAAAA” bgtrans=”t” btype=”old” bcolor=”#CCCCCC” crop=”f” trans=”xfade” tbs=”4000″ f_ap=”t” linkdest=”c” f_fullscreen=”f” f_constrain=”f” twoup=”f” f_topbar=”f” f_bbarbig=”” f_htmllinks=”f” f_enable_embed_btn=”f” f_show_watermark=”f” f_send_to_friend_btn=”f” f_smooth=”f” f_mtrx=”f” f_up=”f” target=”_self” wmds=”llQ6QNgpeC.p1Ucz7U.f0Meq6hKKHa2XlPLfudoyn7YX3OpI2D_JKG0bZVYOgqQqiTUV5g–” ] UTICA, N.Y. — Trinity’s Sam Johnson scored zero goals this season. Until tonight. Johnson’s goal at 18:26 of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[390],"coauthors":[392],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23549"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23549"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23594,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23549\/revisions\/23594"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23549"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=23549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}