Justin Feil

By: centraljersey.com
In the fall, Skye Samse was a role player for the Princeton Day School boys soccer team that won the Mercer County and Prep B tournaments.
On Thursday, the senior enjoyed another tournament title, this one as co-captain for the PDS boys ice hockey team, as the Panthers beat top-seeded Pingry, 4-2, in front of their home crowd at Lisa McGraw Rink.
"I’m 3-for-3 this year," Samse said. "I’m hoping to be 4-for-4 soon."
The defending champion Panthers open play in the Mercer County Tournament on Wednesday. They are the top seed.
Samse had won a prep baseball state championship last spring. Helping the Panthers to their first hockey title in five years was extra meaningful as a leader of the group.
"It’s definitely right up there at the top," Samse said. ‘This is a sport where I do contribute a lot to the team. I am a captain of this team. That makes it even more special. I have a leadership role on the team, set by the players and set by the coaches. It’s a great feeling. This one is definitely up there at the top of the list."
The win helped the Panthers avenge a 6-4 loss to Pingry in the regular season, as well as the 11-0 loss to them in last year’s state semifinals. The Panthers, though, didn’t feel like underdogs as they recorded their eighth straight win.
"Knowing we beat Mo-Beard, and they had beaten Pingry, we knew they were definitely beatable," Samse said. "We look at that game that we lost in December as one we should have won. We were up 4-2 with three minutes left in the second period. We give up four unanswered goals to lose.
"We beat them when it really mattered the most."
Alex Nespor and Samse’s fellow senior co-captain Peter Blackburn scored second-period goals to erase a 1-0 first-period deficit that might have been worse, if not for the play of Connor Walker in goal. The sophomore finished with 33 saves, and did not allow a goal after Pingry tied the game in the final two minutes of the second period. It was a big difference from the first meeting of the year with Pingry.
Said Samse: "We’ve been having some stellar goaltending play by Connor Walker. The last couple games, he’s played unbelievable. He saved us. Some of the saves he made, they were huge."
Neither team scored in the first 12 minutes of the third period, but Nespor went high with a shot for a power play goal with 2:31 left off a feed from Samse. Blackburn iced the win with an empty-net goal with 19 ticks left, and the Panthers never allowed a quality scoring chance in the final two minutes and did not allow a point to 65-point scorer Matt Beattie.
"They’re a good team," said PDS head coach Scott Bertoli after improving to 15-7-1. "They’re a top 10 team in the state for a reason. They outplayed us for the majority of the game, I’ll give them that. Connor played great. We tried to keep them to the outside. Every time they turned the puck over, we were ready to go. We scored two of our four in transition when they turned the puck over.
"This week has been a tremendous test of us and we’ve passed with flying colors," he said. "We beat a Mo-Beard team that won the last four championships. We had our best performance of the year on Tuesday. Then Pingry, who beat us 5-1 in the regular season and 11-0 in the prep semifinal last year and 6-4 earlier in the year. They had a lot of reasons to doubt and to come into this game without the confidence. We didn’t. We played a good patient game."
Some of the confidence started to build last year when they finished a tough year on a high note with the county crown. This year, they have started the championship portion of the season with the prep title.
"We definitely had this as one of the things that was within reach after last year," Samse said. "I think last year we won the county title, but we were a very young team. We still are a young team. A lot of our key scorers were freshmen last year or Peter, who was new to the program. After having that year under their belt, we felt they could have even more than they had." All season, younger Panther players and Bertoli have pointed to the importance of the leadership of Blackburn and Samse to this year’s success.
"Skye is a great kid," Bertoli said. "He and Peter have been tremendous leaders since Day One. I’ve given ownership to them. I told those guys, this is your team, and they’ll live and die on your level of commitment and sacrifice."
Explained Samse: "We talked about it. Peter and I had to be on the same page with the direction we wanted the team to go. We had to have the same mentality going in and had to feed off each other’s energy. I think I’m more vocal on the ice, Peter’s more vocal in the pre-game. We complement each other. Once the puck drops, I’m very fiery. We’re great leaders together and it makes it special that this is how we’re going to go out."
Samse made an early sacrifice for the team that has paid off handsomely. Once one of the team’s big scorers as a forward, he moved back to defense this season.
"I love scoring goals," Samse said. "There’s nothing better than scoring and having the crowd there to cheer for you.
"Bert asked me before the season started how I felt playing defense. I realized if I played defense, something like this could happen. I’ve still scored goals. You don’t remember the number of goals you score. You remember the championships. I’ll remember the run we made to win the championship. I think I made the right choice."
The move back helped to strengthen the Panthers, and helped them to a goal that had eluded them in Samse’s first three seasons with PDS.
"It’s pretty amazing," he said. "I think actually the soccer season taught me a lot. In the soccer team, I was a bench player. I played maybe 10-15 minutes a game. Maxime Hoppenot was one of the best leaders I’ve probably been around. He definitely influenced how I lead now, and how to be a good captain on and off the field. He not only taught me that, he taught me the winning ways."
It all came together in the last six weeks for the Panthers. They built on their New England trip success, carried it back into a tough schedule. There were some losses, but PDS learned from them and put together a run to the title.
"It’s an unbelievable feeling," Samse said. "It’s something I worked for four years. We made it to final freshman and sophomore year. We lost to Mo-Beard both of those years. We didn’t even make it last year. We got mercied by Pingry. It was great to take revenge and go out with a bang."
For Samse, who will walk-on the University of Richmond baseball team, it’s the third title in what so far has been a perfect senior year through soccer and the start of hockey. With MCT hockey and baseball to come in the spring, he imagines it could get even better.
"Maybe 6-for-6 with baseball," Samse said.