By Mike Gurnis
The first five minutes of Thursday’s North, Public sectional final couldn’t have gone much better for Randolph.
The next forty minutes, however, was a nightmare for the Rams.
After getting an early goal, Randolph saw the game get away from it, as Northern Highlands took control with three first period goals, followed by four more in the second to put the game well out of reach. It proved to be too much for top-seeded and previously-unbeaten Randolph, as it fell, 8-3, to second-seeded Northern Highlands in the NJSIAA North, Public final at Mennen Arena.
Randolph’s season ends at 22-1-1, falling two wins short of the first undefeated season by a public school in recent memory. Despite a perfect season in the Mennen Division culminating in a Mennen Cup title, it fell short of its first state title since 2019-20.
“We were proud of the way they played all year,” Randolph coach Rich McLaughlin said. “They represented Randolph High School really well and they worked hard. They were 22-0, and that doesn’t happen. It hasn’t happened ever around here. We played a really good team today. We didn’t play our best, but they were really good. They put pressure on us like we haven’t had all year and we weren’t ready for it. We got back on our heels quick and we just couldn’t recover from it. They’re a good team.”
Randlph jumped ahead 1:18 into the game when Shane Melly scored on a turnaround shot from the slot. The Rams controlled the opening five minutes, which included a power play, and had a 6-1 shot advantage.
But it all shifted with 9:27 left in the first when Vincenzo Capano- who finished with four goals and two assists- buried a goal to tie it at one. Just over three minutes later, Capano struck again to give Highlands a lead it never relinquished. Matt Gershengorn scored before the end of the first, and Northern Highlands led, 3-1.
Randolph has faced its fair share of two-goal deficits lately, trailing by two to Morris Knolls-Hills in the Mennen Cup semifinals and again in its last game, a 5-3 win over Ridgewood in the sectional semifinals. A team that has thrived on a quick-strike offense all season is never out of a game, and it needed just one goal to turn the tide.
But any hopes the Rams had of getting back into the game were quickly dashed, when Brent Beswick scored a pair of goals 1:14 apart to make it a 5-1 game. Capano added another late in the period to extend it to 6-1. Drew George got Randolph within four with 52 seconds left in the period, but Beswick completed the hat trick seconds later, and the writing was on the wall for Randolph going into the third period.
“To be honest I think we kind of sat back on ourselves and worried about what they were going to do instead of what we should’ve done,” McLaughlin said. “We should’ve kept going hard, hard, hard. We sat back in the trap a little bit early because they were sitting on it, and they kind of ruined our momentum a little bit. Looking back there, we should’ve just kept going and going instead of letting them set up. We gave it a go. I don’t want to give excuses, but a bunch of them have been sick all week. But we’re proud of these guys. They worked hard and represented us really well this year.”
Drew George finished with two goals for Randolph. It was the final game for Randolph’s three-man senior class, which included defenseman Ashton Feinberg, defenseman Adam White, and goalie John Krynicki.
“We’re very proud of what we do here. We work hard and sometimes it just doesn’t work out. We won 21 games in a row. If you told us in the beginning of the year that we’d be 21-1, I would’ve bought it in a minute. We just picked a bad game to sit back and not play our best. And we played a really good team on top of that.”
With only a handful of seniors, that means the vast majority of a Randolph squad which scored 156 goals this season, will be back, headlined by junior Jase Zangara. This group didn’t experience a loss until its final game of the season this year, and McLaughlin hopes this group will learn from its loss on Thursday as it looks to make another run at a state title next year.
“Our biggest games are always going to be our last,” McLaughlin said. “We’ve got to fire up for every game and play hard for three periods. The one thing we didn’t do this year all the time is play three full periods. That’s something we can work on as we get older. We’ll have a few more seniors out here, they’ll be bigger, stronger, and smarter, and we’ll be able to hopefully get by this.”
SCORING SUMMARY
First period
RAN — Shane Melly 13:42
NH — Vincenzo Capano (Brent Beswick) 9:27
NH — Vincenzo Capano (Matt Gershengorn) 6:00
NH — Matt Gerhsengorn (Brent Beswick) 2:58
Second period
NH — Brent Beswick (Vincenzo Capano, Jake Baratta) 10:37
NH — Brent Beswick (Vincenzo Capano) 9:23
NH — Vincenzo Capano 3:50
RAN — Andrew George (Shane Melly) 0:52 PPG
NH — Brent Beswick 0:31
Third period
NH — Vincenzo Capano 12:55
RAN — Andrew George (Jase Zangara, Daniel Sharkey) 11:23
Shots on goal: Northern Highlands 26, Randolph 23.
Morris-Sussex Hockey Report 