A Conference Hockey Playoffs Begin

The Calvert Hall Cardinals are seeded second in this year's playoffs. (Zachary Harrison)

By: Luke Jackson

The Mount St. Joseph ice hockey team clinched the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference regular season title in the final week of competition last week.

The Gaels used their two wins in the final week to lock up the top spot. Mount St. Joe entered the last week with 11 points and a one-point edge over Calvert Hall for first place, won 10-0 over Loyola Blakefield and 9-2 over Archbishop Spalding to wrap up the regular season title.

Jake Natoli and Steve Courtney led the Gaels’ scoring attack during these final regular season games with four goals apiece.

Andrew Fitzhugh, Shane Flynn, Shane Casey and Mark Cisar all added two goals each throughout these games.

The Gaels finished the season 10-2-4 overall and 6-0-3 in the A Conference, good for 15 conference points. They’ll have the No. 1 seed in the A Conference playoffs and play fourth-seeded Loyola tonight at the Gardens Ice House at Laurel at 6:10 p.m.

Loyola finished 1-13-1 overall and 0-9 in the A Conference. The Gaels won all three meetings with Loyola.

Calvert Hall finished the season 11-6-3 overall and 5-2-2 in the A Conference, getting 12 conference points.

Calvert Hall needed a St. Joe loss or tie to have a chance at winning the A Conference regular season title, but its 4-3 loss to Spalding early in the week dashed all hopes of a title. Still, the Cardinals finished the regular season strong, winning 8-0 over Loyola in the Brother Andrew Cup.

The Cardinals will have the No. 2 seed in the A Conference playoffs and are set to meet No. 3 seed Archbishop Spalding tomorrow at 3:20 p.m. at Mount Pleasant Ice Rink. The Cavaliers finished the season 7-5-1 overall and 4-4-1 in the conference (nine points).

The Cardinals won the season series over the Cavaliers two games to one.

The winners of each game will face off on Friday at Piney Orchard at 6 p.m. in the A Conference Championship game.