BROOKLYN, OH - The Brooklyn Regional crown returned to the corner of West 30th and Lorain on March 7th after the Wildcats earned their seventh consecutive victory over the St. Edward Eagles. The last time the teams met in the regional final was in 2024, when the Wildcats won 6-1 and went on to win the State Championship.
The 2026 edition of the Regional Final started in a similar fashion to the match up on December 19th, as the Eagles would strike first when Jacob Sowders scored his team-leading 19th goal of the season on a rebound in front of the net during the opening minute of the second period, forcing the Wildcats to play from behind.
Then, at the 9:54 mark of the second period, junior forward
Patrick Rose picked up the puck in the neutral zone on an Eagle turnover before firing a puck just above the tops of the circles past Eagle goaltender Aiden King to tie the game up at one.
Just over two minutes later, junior defenseman
Gavin Marziani stepped up from the blue line to pick the puck up off a deflection in the slot before ripping a wrist shot through traffic, beating Aiden King glove side to give the Cats their first lead of the game.
Momentum began to swing in the Eagles' favor for the rest of the period. With 1:16 remaining in the middle frame, Carter Smith nearly tied the game on an odd-man rush when he beat
Blake Benedictis' blocker side but was denied by the crossbar, going bar down and out, and the game stayed 2–1 heading into intermission.
With 6:24 remaining in regulation,
Aiden Roche was called for tripping, sending the Wildcats to the penalty kill for two minutes. The unit, which killed off eight penalties against Rocky River in the regional semi-final, would come up huge, turning away multiple Eagle scoring chances and returning to even strength with 4:24 to play.
In need of a goal, the Eagles pulled their goalie with 1:17 remaining in the game to get an extra attacker on the ice. St. Edward had their chances to score, but just over thirty seconds later, Rose sent a puck towards the empty net and scored, sealing the Wildcats' victory and fourth straight regional title.
After the game, when asked about going down 1–0,
Patrick Rose said the Wildcats' mentality was, "Positivity, positivity, positivity." Rose highlighted Saint Ignatius' mental toughness. "We knew that if we went down, we were gonna come back and win", he said.
The Wildcats would punch their ticket to the Frozen Four for the 15th time in program history, and it would be the fourth straight trip to Columbus.
With multiple upsets around the state, the Wildcats jumped up to the two spot in the Frozen Four bracket. They will play the third-ranked Dublin Jerome Celtics, a team returning to the Frozen Four for the first time since 2019, at 4 p.m. on Saturday in the second semifinal match up at Nationwide Arena.
The top Gilmour Academy Lancers earned their spot in the frozen four after a 4OT thriller win over University School in the Kent Regional Final. They will take on the Sylvania Northview Wildcats, a team that defeated Toledo St. Francis in overtime in the Bowling Green Regional Final. That game will be played at 1 p.m. on Saturday at Nationwide Arena in Columbus.
The State Championship will be held the following day at 4 p.m. at Nationwide Arena in Columbus. The Cats are in search of the program's ninth State Title. and the first since the 2023-24 season.
