By Mike Gurnis
When Ryan Brown first arrived at Pope John in 2001, the Lions built themselves into a program that was playing in the prestigious Gordon Conference just three years later.
Going up against top competition night-in and night-out presented a challenge for a program that has struggled with participation numbers over the years. But its a challenge that Brown and his team have embraced all the way.
Through the better part of 17 seasons under Brown (who did not coach from 2008-13), the Lions have established themselves as a program that can compete with some of the state’s best teams. On Saturday night, Brown earned his 200th career victory, as Pope John picked up a 5-1 win over defending Public A state champion Ridge at the Ice Vault Holiday Classic in Wayne.
“I think it shows I’m getting old,” Brown said with a laugh. “No, we’ve had a lot of great kids come through the program. We play in a very tough conference in the Gordon Conference. There’s not a lot of easy games on the schedule. I’m proud of the guys tonight, because I thought they played well against a good team.”
He added, “But yeah, I appreciate all the kids that have played for me in the past and all the kids in the locker room right now. We have a nice group here. The kids work hard, and I’m proud of the effort so far this year. While winning games is nice, I’m happier for the kids that they’re able to do well.”
When he arrived at Pope John in 2001, the team had only a handful of club players. The school is located in Sparta, right smack in the middle of Sussex County, which is not as populated of an area to draw players from as some of the program’s Gordon Conference counterparts.
Yet, the program has managed to put together winning seasons on a regular basis under his tutelage- with highlights being two Non-Public semifinals appearances in 2006 and 2017, and a Gordon Cup final appearance in 2017.
Brown’s career record stands at 200-132-44.
“We’re up in Sparta and we have less kids playing hockey up there,” Brown said. “For us, we’ve always been a smaller program. I think this year we have 24 kids total. So that’s a challenge for sure getting numbers to our program, but we’re playing the top programs in the state, so we have to have the right kids here, too. Jefferson and Sparta, there’s a lot of kids playing hockey there. But when you go up a little further in Sussex, it’s tough. Logistically, just getting kids to school with bussing and everything, it’s not an easy task. All the coaches at Pope John, we all work as hard as we can to get players to come play for us and go to our school.”
The win on Saturday night came courtesy of a strong start from Pope John, which got a goal from senior defenseman Declan Murphy 5:49 into the game. It added onto that lead when sophomore Hunter Parrillo netted one 1:03 into the second.
“We were obviously doing it for (Brown),” Murphy said. “200 is obviously really big. We went out there first, in front of the net (during warmups) and said let’s do this for coach and get him 200.
“He’s helped me develop as a player and a person. He’s always there. He’s always correcting me on my mistakes and helping me get better.”
Just a few minutes after Pope John built a 2-0 lead, Ridge struck back on a goal from Ben McCain. But the momentum shifted right back to the Lions when a five-minute major penalty was called for a hit from behind on Ridge.
Nicholas Colatrella capitalized with a power play goal on that major to restore the two-goal cushion. Robbie Myshkoff added another power play tally early in the third, before Parrillo buried his second of the game to seal it.
“It was really great,” Parillo said. “We battled hard, fought through a lot of adversity out there. We got the win for coach, which was great. We had a win-first mentality. We know we’re good, we had to come out hard and battle through a lot of stuff, and just get the puck on the net at the end of the day.”
Anthony Conetta stopped 17 of 18 shots in goal.
Pope John improved its record to 6-3 with the win, and went a perfect 3-0 in the Ice Vault Classic- taking wins over Ramapo, Middletown South, and Ridge. The team’s only three losses have come to teams ranked in NJ.com’s Top 10- No. 7 Bergen Catholic (5-4 overtime loss), No. 6 St. John Vianney (3-1), and No. 9 Seton Hall Prep (4-2).
Even in those losses, Brown believes the team has largely played well, and is something it can take into the resumption of its Gordon Conference schedule on Wednesday when it hosts Bergen Catholic at 6:50 p.m. at Skylands Ice World.
“Even in the games we’ve lost, we’ve had good nights, we’ve outshot most of our opponents,” Brown said. “We have a lot of guys contributing in different roles. I think we’re a tough team to play against. That’s probably the mantra that we’ve had in the locker room. We don’t have necessarily the high-end talent as some of the teams have that we play. We have guys that can do the job, but we’re not as deep as some of the teams that we play. I think for us, we want to be hard to play against. We want to be a fast team, we want to be a puck-possession team, we want to be hard to play against. I think for the most part, we have been this year.”
Murphy added, “I think we’re doing really good right now. We’re really aggressive on the puck and we’re really playing together as a team, which is helping our success as a team. We’re just going to continue to win games from here.”
THREE STARS
First star: Hunter Parillo, Pope John, So., F- 2G
Second star: Matt Hughes, Pope John, Sr., F- 2A
Third star: Declan Murphy, Pope John, Sr., D- 1G- the game’s opening goal
SCORING SUMMARY
First period
PJ — Declan Murphy (Matt Hughes) 9:11
Second period
PJ — Hunter Parrillo 13:57
RID — Ben McCain (Brody Hansen, Jake Gunn) 10:57
PJ — Nicholas Colatrella 6:31 PPG
Third period
PJ — Robbie Myshkoff (Matt Hughes) 12:58 PPG
PJ — Hunter Parrillo (Johans Bars) 7:40
Shots on goal: Pope John 34, Ridge 18
Saves: Nick Alvin (Ridge) 29, Anthony Conetta (Pope John) 17
E-mail Mike Gurnis at michaelgurnis@gmail.com
Morris-Sussex Hockey Report 