BURLINGTON — Milton High hockey player Owen Severy stared into a pair of television camera with a dazed expression Friday night at the University of Vermont.
Behind him and awash in riotous joy were hundreds of his classmates. Looming over the tall sophomore was Gutterson Field House’s four-sided video scoreboard, its display showing his Yellowjackets had just beaten Hartford, 4-3, in overtime.
The cameramen shuffled closer with their large lenses and glaring lights. They jabbered at the young man above the crowd noise.
“I’m just in shock,” Severy confessed. “I don’t know what to say right now.”
Neither did any of the Hurricanes as they stood along the opposite blue line, bodies slumped and heads hung in anguish. Hartford entered the VPA Division II title game undefeated and with one of its 22 victories over Milton. The top-seeded team scored just a minute into the action and led, 3-0, after two periods. How had events gone so wrong so quickly?
“We caused some turnovers and made some key interceptions in the offensive zone,” said Milton coach Bryant Perry, whose team also overcame a 3-0 deficit during its semifinal defeat of Stowe. “Knowing what happened in the semis, that kept our guys alive and positive.
“Once we got that first goal, then our fans came alive and it was like, ‘Here we go again.’ ”
Said Hartford captain Simon Spaulding: “We usually put teams away in the third, but we just didn’t have our legs and we lost control of the game. If we had held them (scoreless) a little bit longer, we wouldn’t have let them get to OT.”
The deciding play began with Milton winning an offensive zone faceoff. A few seconds later, the Yellowjackets played the puck from the left point and into the near corner, where Cameron Fougere skated onto it from behind the net. The senior cut above Hartford’s Blaine Gour and through the left circle, bending around defender James McReynolds in the high slot.
Fougere appeared headed into the right corner but unexpectedly threw the puck back towards the far post. Exactly what happened next was hard to discern, but as Severy and Hartford’s Lochlan Park simultaneou the rubber caromed at roughly 90 degrees and behind sprawling goaltender Davey Bradley. Fougere was awarded the goal, scored with 4 minutes, 14 seconds left in OT.
“That’s the way goals are scored in overtime, and it never should have gotten to that point,” said 24th-year coach Todd Bebeau, his expression stricken above his lowered surgical mask. “I give 100% credit to Milton, because they were the better team when it mattered most.”
Hartford’s Ezra Mock opened the scoring from near the right point after only 1 minute, 16 seconds. The Hurricanes doubled their lead with 4:40 to play in the first period. Connor Tierney’s shot from the middle of the blue line pinballed inside the left post while his team enjoyed a man advantage.
Hartford went up, 3-0, two minutes before the first intermission on another Tierney shot from the point, this one through a screen. The junior’s tallies were assisted by McReynolds, and the Hurricanes held a 15-4 shot advantage heading into the second period.
That middle stanza was notable mostly for the two crushing hits Severy absorbed, one by Gour and the other by McReynolds. The Yellowjacket skated directly off the ice and into the hallway behind the Milton bench after both wallops. The second thunderclap caused him to miss the last five minutes of the second period and the first five minutes of the third.
Perry explained that his star, who notched a hat trick in the semifinals, was examined for a possible concussion and cleared by medical personnel.
“He got his bell rung a little bit, but he seemed to be fine,” the coach said. “The trainer’s not going to let him play if it’s serious, but with little bumps and bruises, you’ve got to play. I told our guys to lay it all out there, because you’ve got the rest of your lives to heal.”
The epic comeback was sparked when Gour committed an unnecessary hooking penalty at center ice two minutes into the third period. The Yellowjackets (17-6-1) executed tic-tac-toe passing leading to a Fougere shot under the crossbar.
Milton pulled within 3-2 with five minutes remaining in the third period on Caleb Barnier’s low slap shot from center point through a screen.
Hartford appeared fatigued and uninspired, its once-crisp breakouts now repeatedly thwarted.
Gutterson, its volume already high and its stands holding an estimated 3,500 fans, exploded with sound 40 seconds later when Severy was left unattended near the left post and fired a shot into the net’s top twine.
So sudden and at so sharp an angle was the tally that the puck bounced down and out and play continued in a confused fashion. The officials conferred and confirmed their call on Milton’s unanswered eighth shot since the second intermission.
“Things turned like a switch had been thrown,” Severy said of his team’s utter transformation during the final stanza. “I was surprised how we came back in the third period. I thought (Hartford) was going to take it away.”
Bebeau, who used his one allowed timeout a minute into the final period, repeatedly blamed himself after the game. The Hartford High graduate played on the school’s first title-winning hockey team in 1985 and has coached the Hurricanes to four other crowns, their last in 2009.
“This one’s on me because I didn’t get the message through and make the right adjustments between the second and third periods,” Bebeau said. “Our young people are resilient … and they’ll move on. But right now, this one hurts and there’s nothing I can say to make them feel better.”
Spaulding leaned against an interior hallway wall 20 minutes after the game, watching players from Essex and Rice clomp past on their way to play the Division I championship game. One door down, celebratory music pumped from the Milton dressing room, along with an occasional scream.
“They just looked like they wanted it more,” Spaulding said. “It’s especially crushing to go 22-0 and finally get to the the Gut and then come up short. But it’s been a hell of a season.”
Tris Wykes can be reached at twykes@vnews.com.