Bellmore-Merrick Bulldogs skate to title

With the Bellmore-Merrick Bulldogs’ hopes of winning their first-ever Nassau County hockey championship sitting on the end of his stick in overtime against No. 2 Long Beach on Feb. 26, Mepham High School junior Jon Olson scored perhaps the biggest goal of his Bulldogs’ career — and that’s saying something, minutes earlier he had scored the game-tying goal with just 1:22 remaining in the third period.

Olson, among the Bulldogs’ top scorers all season, converted a penalty shot with 18.5 seconds left in overtime of Game 2 in the Michelino Division championship with the Marines to give Bellmore-Merrick a thrilling 5-4 win at Long Beach Arena. The Bulldogs had won Game 1, 4-3, two days earlier at Newbridge Arena, setting up the potential for a series sweep.

“The playoffs were magic,” coach Chris Patten said. “Long Beach is the standard of high school hockey on Long Island. [Jon] Olson has [been among our] best players and your best players play their best against the best teams.”

The game-ending penalty shot — awarded when a Marines defenseman covered up the puck with his hand in the crease — completed an undefeated campaign in Nassau County for the Bulldogs, who finished 21-0 before advancing to the Varsity Pure New York State Tournament at Jamestown Savings Bank Arena last weekend. In the six-team round robin tournament, Bellmore-Merrick finished 2-2 in four games, falling 3-2 to Starpoint, the eventual champion, in the semifinal round last Sunday.

“It was a fun and eventful weekend,” junior Anthony Scoca said of the trip upstate. “I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to go up and compete for a state title with. The way we competed [at Jamestown] was the best we had competed all year. I couldn’t be happier to be part of a team that created history.”

Olson’s late-game playoff magic against the Marines put an exclamation mark on a wild game that saw senior co-captain Joe Grice (Calhoun) score twice and senior co-captain Tyler Anzelone (Calhoun) add a goal of his own to stake the Bulldogs to a 3-0 lead before the Marines showed their mettle and stormed back with four consecutive goals of their own in front of a standing room only crowd of 1,500 people.