Despite never leading Maryland until Brian MacLaren chipped in the tournament-clinching overtime winner, N.C. State celebrated a 6-5 victory over the ACC regular season champions to win a title of its own early Sunday afternoon. The Pack earned the gold by lighting up Duke 7-1 on Friday night and taking down Georgetown 7-4 on Saturday evening, en route to the defeating the Terrapins a day later.
Harry Fryckberg, the president and captain of State’s club hockey squad, led a young Wolfpack line up that featured seven freshman. Although Maryland received a first round bye in the tournament, Fryckberg said that having to play one more game than Maryland turned out to be beneficial in the end.
“I think it actually helped us out having to play those extra games because we didn’t really have a chance to look forward to anything,” Fryckberg, a junior in economics, said. “We just took everything one game at a time. Maryland had an easy game shutting out Carolina and they probably took everything a little easy.
“We fought so hard to get to the finals and we just wanted to keep it going. It all worked out in the end.”
One of the major story lines from Hillsborough’s Triangle Sportsplex wasn’t just mental preparation heading into the Sunday’s championship contest, but rather physical preparation. Fourteen hours after defeating Georgetown in a physical match up, State had to quickly turn around to face a well-rested Maryland team.
“It was a little tough for everybody being able to sleep that night,” Fryckberg said. “Georgetown is a pretty solid team, and everybody was pretty tired after that game. They (Maryland) were probably expecting to beat us, but we just kept fighting. We were able to put a little bit of pressure on them, skate a little harder, and it just all came together.”
While Fryckberg has been around to watch the recent development of State hockey, coach Mike Gazzillo is in his first year with the Pack. Echoing his captain’s statements, Gazzillo said that fight and determination ultimately decided State’s outcome of the tournament.
“You have to approach it one game at a time,” Gazzillo said. “You can’t ever look at an opponent that you’ve beat and think you’ve got it won. We looked at Duke as a strong opponent and we just went out there and put in the back of our minds that we had beat them. The thing we kept saying over and over was that this is going to come down to who wants it more. Every game is a must win and every shift is a must win shift.”
Earlier in the season when State visited Maryland, the Terrapins outscored the Wolfpack 16-3 in an embarrassing two game series. Gazzillo’s team would only drop one more conference game in finishing during ACCHL play before setting up a match up of the one-seed and two-seed.
“I think Maryland was waiting to play us more than we were waiting to play them,” Gazzillo said. “They’ve got a good club, they’re well coached, and they’ve got really good hockey players. It was a match up that I was hoping for. If No. 1 and No. 2 can play for the championship, you can’t really ask for anything more than that.”
For Gazzillo, the main theme of the tournament was for his team to prove that they had a stronger will and determination than its opponent. After challenging his team on Saturday night to complete the mission, the Pack were able to battle and do just that.
“Going into the second period of the Georgetown game, I told them that they had five periods of hockey left in their entire season,” Gazzillo said. “I told them they had to win every period. That’s exactly what they did.”
