BY WAYNE WITKOWSKI
Staff Writer
Mike Mulcahy said he never saw the shot.Three minutes into overtime, a shot from outside found the back of the net and ended the season for the Brick Midget Minors 16s AA team in the USA Hockey national championships in Fraser, Mich., lifting the Troy team from that state to a 5-4 victory.
“It just happened so fast; our season ended on a single shot,” said Mulcahy, who also just completed his junior season as Brick Township’s goalie.
“I didn’t see it [the puck] coming. I think it was deflected, I don’t know. All I know is it came fast.”
But Mulcahy, who played superbly in goal at times in three games, helped Brick in its split of four games.
Brick finished in fifth place in the tournament, the same as its Midget Minors 16s AA team two years ago. It matches the best finish by any Brick team ever in a national tournament, with its PeeWees in 1994 also placing fifth.
Mulcahy finished as the second-ranked goalie in goals-allowed in the tournament.
“He was outstanding,” said coach George Colwell.
“I can see over the last three months his maturity level going up tremendously.”
And it showed in the locker room of that final game. Brick trailed 2-1 after the first period and 3-1 after the second. Brick tied it at 3-3 in the third period, fell behind 4-3, and then tied it again.
Mike Seyglinski tied it at 4-4 with a rebound goal, his second of the game, to force sudden-death overtime.
But in the break after the second period, Mulcahy went against his usual quiet nature and spoke up.
“There was a lot of hollering in the locker room after the second period,” said Mulcahy. “We knew we had to come out hard or the season was over.
“We came out playing hockey in that third period like we had the whole season. We showed what we can do.”
“He gave a big speech to rile the kids up; to do that is rare,” said Colwell of Mulcahy. “He’s helped us not even just playing-wise but as an emotional leader.
“I thought we’d win the game in overtime, although I can’t complain with the effort,” said Colwell, whose team also got goals from Tom Mollica and Andrew Ball. “It was an unbelievable effort. We just had too many penalties.”
Mulcahy has had to stand up to adversity before over the past three years, living without either parent when his mother died of cancer and his father left the home, and he grew up only with his older sister, Jennifer, who is 26. Jennifer helped Mike with some decisions and direction that he needed to get.
“She helps me with a lot of stuff like that. I guess I’ve handled it pretty well,” said Mulcahy, with a tone of modesty.
“He’s had his bumps in the road in his years with us but it’s great how he’s gotten through it,” said Brick resident Alex DePalma, a prominent member of the Brick Hockey Club who is the director of coaching for the Northeast Region of Hockey USA.
It certainly was a tough challenge for Mulcahy to grow up in a setting different from most families.
“Pretty much [tough] I guess,” he said. “It’s something you learn to live with.”
And he had his frustration with the high school team as well, which fell just shy of making the NJSIAA Tournament for the second straight year in what coach Bob Auriemma called an “up and down season” for Mulcahy and the team.
But Mulcahy pulled it together at the end of the season and gave himself “the drive for something for next season” with the great postseason run by the Brick Hockey Club, only the fifth team to make it to the nationals.
Brick lost its opener to a California team, 2-1, on Wednesday as Seyglinski scored the goal.
What made it tougher was that three players had their luggage lost on the flight – forwards Ken Carmichael, John Frost and Mollica – and had their equipment returned to them 15 minutes before face-off.
Then came a 7-5 victory over the Aston Americans of St. Louis on Thursday, with Nick LoRusso playing in goal that day. A 2-0 victory over the Mid-Fairfield (Conn.) Blues on Friday propelled Brick into the quarterfinal round on Saturday morning.
Trevor Van Riemsdyk scored the only goal needed in the second period in what Colwell called an “unbelievable effort.” With Brick playing a man down in the second period, Van Riemsdyk put the puck between the legs of a defender and then hit the puck out of the air into the net. Mark Rivera put in the insurance goal later in the period and Mulcahy made it stand up in goal with typical defensive help from James Murphy, Dean Malanga and Van Riemsdyk.
Some players and coaches took the half-hour drive from there on Saturday to Detroit to the Hockeytown exhibit and other sightseeing before returning on Sunday.