Tri-Valley Blue Devils win state hockey championship

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The Tri-Valley Blue Devils 14-and-under (14U) A team took home the California Hockey Association state championship last month.

The 4-2 win over the San Jose Jr. Sharks in the title game in Riverside on April 8 capped a stellar 2017-18 season that saw the local ice hockey squad post a 38-6-4 overall record with a Northern California regular season league title, a NorCal championship and two other tournament victories.

“If one takes a close look at the entire season and breaks things down, you can really see how important every single player was to our overall success,” head coach Joseph Carranza said in a statement.

“The reason the Tri-Valley Blue Devils 14UA 2017-18 team was successful boils down to Aristotle’s phrase, ‘The whole is greater than the sum of its parts,'” Carranza added. “Even though there were times the team played too much ‘me hockey,’ when the big moments and big games arrived, the players played as a team.”

The state tournament in Riverside got off to a rough start for the Blue Devils, who let an early 2-0 lead slip away during a 3-2 overtime loss to the San Diego Ice Arena Oilers. Tri-Valley did secure a valuable point out of the game because it went to overtime.

The Blue Devils controlled their second game, a 3-0 victory over the California Golden Bears, to set up a showdown against the Sharks in the final game of round-robin play. The San Jose team already clinched a spot in the championship with two wins in-hand.

That meant the Tri-Valley squad needed a win in the third game to advance and set up a potential rematch with the Sharks. And win they did, scratching out a 1-0 victory in a hard-fought game, with Neil Johnson’s second-period goal holding up as the decider.

The Blue Devils jumped out to a quick lead in the championship game on Matvey Ivanov’s goal with an assist from Jackson Gurule.

Nicolas Poland gave the Blue Devils a 2-0 lead with an end-to-end rush goal midway through the second. The Sharks got on the board less than a minute later to reduce the margin to 2-1.

But two minutes later the Sharks took a penalty and the Blue Devils made them pay, capitalizing on the ensuing power play with a goal from Kyle Rodgers. Richard Harris added the Tri-Valley’s fourth goal later in the period.

The Sharks scored early on in the third period before the two teams battled scoreless for the rest of the period, giving the Blue Devils a 4-2 victory and the state championship trophy.

The other players on the Blue Devils 14UA team were Matthew Braunbach, Jeffrey Brugaletta, Tanner Curtis, Mitchell Evans, Nicholas Franzwa, Hanna Huska, Cade Llewellyn, Wyatt Moore, Joshua Purpura, Jeffrey Redding and Eric Zheng. Carranza’s staff included assistant coaches Gordon Moore, Mark Redding and Richard Rodgers and team managers Denise Huska and Lora Braunbach.