Newton-Lenape Valley has been right on the cusp of Charette Cup titles in recent years, but hasn’t been able to break through.
It dropped a heartbreaker in the final seconds in a championship game loss to Bernards’-Somerville-Middlesex in 2021, before falling, 8-3 to Montville last year.
This time around was going to be different, and Newton-Lenape Valley made sure it was.
“There was a lot of motivation,” said senior Brayden Dabrowski. “Almost half the team is seniors, so this is our last chance to play high school hockey, and to win the Charette Cup and the division, so there’s a lot of motivation.”
Newton-Lenape Valley, the top seed, came away with a 7-3 win over third-seeded High Point-Wallkill Valley-Kittatinny in the Charette Cup final at Mennen Arena.
It was Newton-Lenape Valley’s first Charette Cup title and third title overall, also winning the McMullen Cup in 2013 and the Haas Cup in 2017. It remains the only Sussex County team to win a Cup title in the MCSSIHL- beating Sussex counterpart Vernon in the Haas final in 2017, before toppling the High Point tri-op in this one.
“There’s a lot of pride in that. Knowing that we’re the team of Sussex County, and next year teams will be looking at us as the ones to beat,” Dabrowski said. “Half of the team isn’t going to be here next year, but the ones that are now juniors, sophomores, freshmen will take the initiative and keep it rolling.”
Dabrowski finished with six points- a hat trick and three assists. Meanwhile, junior Maksym Pastukh continued his big season with two goals and three assists. Senior Justin Zappe chipped in with two goals and an assist, with Martin Murphy recording three assists.
The team has been a high-powered offensive squad all season, previously defeating its Sussex County rival by scores of 7-4 and 7-2 in regular season play. It continued that trend by finding the back of the net seven times again in this one.
“The offense is able to thrive because you have kids like Brayden (Dabrowski) and Maksym (Pastukh), and Martin (Murphy) and (David) Pineda, and (Joey) Gallucci from the back-end,” Newton-Lenape Vally coach Ryan Sevean said. “It forces the forwards to pick their game up and get to the open spaces and create the traffic in front of the net. It’s the little things, and we get the shots on net and we’re able to score.”
It fell behind early in the game, but Dabrowski, Zappe, and Pastukh all scored in a span of 5:02 at the end of the period to build a 3-1 lead. It never looked back from there, scoring twice more in the second before putting the game out of reach with two goals early in the third.
“It feels so good,” Pastukh said. “Last year we lost and we were all just sad. This year we had an opportunity to win and we just did what we did.”
The co-op program takes a lot of pride in being the only Sussex County school to win a cup title in the MCSSIHL. It last did it in 2017, when it upended Vernon, 2-1, in the Haas Cup final. It’s been a long wait, and after coming so close to raising the cup once again the last few years, it finally was able to break through.
The team is now 12-10 overall and also has the Charette regular season title under its belt. It will look to keep its season going on Friday, when it hosts Clifton in a North, Public Co-Op play-in game at Skylands Ice World at 9:10 p.m.
It will be the first home state playoff game in program history, and will look to win a state game for the second time ever. But for now, it will celebrate a hard-earned cup title.
“Everybody was on the same page the last couple of weeks,” Sevean said. “We had a heartbreaking loss to South Brunswick last week. Early in the season when we lost to Edison, which was like a smack in the face, and it was like whoa, what’s going on here? But then we went on that tear. It showed that the work ethic was there, and they wanted to win. They needed to win. This was the culmination of it all.”
SCORING SUMMARY
First period
HPWK — Joshua Custode (Anthony Tokar, Brady Reid) 13:29
NLV — Brayden Dabrowski (Maksym Pastukh) 5:51
NLV — Justin Zappe (Brayden Dabrowski) 2:16
NLV — Maksym Pastukh (Joey Gallucci, Brayden Dabrowski) 0:49
Second period
NLV — Brayden Dabrowski (Martin Murphy, Justin Zappe) 13:22
HPWK — Michael Sadowski 6:44 PPG
NLV — Maksym Pastukh (Martin Murphy) 3:46 SHG
Third period
NLV — Brayden Dabrowski (Martin Murphy, Maksym Pastukh) 10:32
NLV — Justin Zappe (Maksym Pastukh, Brayden Dabrowski) 9:37 PPG
HPWK — Anthony Tokar 4:30
Shots on goal: High Point-Wallkill Valley 39, Newton-Lenape Valley 27
Saves: Ryan Salerno (NLV) 37, Landon Healy (HPWK) 20
Morris-Sussex Hockey Report 