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Sports

Interesting Season Ahead for Defending Champs

After winning the Division I-A title last season in dramatic fashion, the NKHS ice hockey team will need to rely on its youth this season.

The conclusion of last season's Division I-A state championship seemed like something straight from Hollywood, not Providence, RI.

Actually, the entire scene seemed like a little bit of both.

The outcome of the championship hinged on a single penalty shot with no time remaining, a familiar scenario for fans of "D2: The Mighty Ducks," Disney's sequel to "The Mighty Ducks."

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Then sophomore goaltender Matt Buresh, channeling his best impression of Julie "The Cat" Gaffney, stoned league-leading scorer Ryan O'Dell of Lincoln High School with a sprawling save to secure the Skippers first title. (O'Dell played the part of Gunnar Stahl in that scenario, for all of you playing at home.)

"That was pretty crazy," senior Michael Sherburne said. "Our goalie is a part of the team and so is everyone else, so we really had to rely on him there."

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Buresh returns to reprise his role as starting goaltender for North Kingstown, but unfortunately for North Kingstown he is one of the only ones.

"We have seen some significant contributions from some of the younger kids already, which is nice because we don't have a ton of seniors like we did have last year," North Kingstown head coach Keith Higgins said. "We almost have no alternative, and these guys have been thrown into the mix and are adjusting nicely."

The Skippers graduated about one-third of their team from last year and will have to rely heavily on their underclassmen and less experienced players.

"We definitely don't have as many upperclassmen as we have had in the past, which has always helped with leadership," senior Steve Martin said. "This year's kind of a rebuilding year this year, but a lot of kids have definitely stepped up. Whether it is the juniors or the sophomores, they've stepped up into the role of being able to play Division I hockey."

Martin and Sherburne have provided the senior leadership as captains to this year's underclassmen-heavy squad early on.

"Both senior captain are doing a fantastic job," said Higgins. "Matt Buresh has been playing really well, but we haven't had much time on the ice. We're only making these assessments through basically minutes of seeing them on the ice."

That is the biggest challenge for Higgins and his staff this season – first identifying what talent they have in this group and then figuring out how it is best implemented.

"It's something that is somewhat new to me," said Higgins. "A lot of this is like reliving our first year, not really knowing what you've got to deal with. I was just telling the team that we've been kind of pleasantly surprised with the contributions from some of these kids that we don't even know, or know very little of."

Despite the youth of this team, and what little ice time they have had this season, Higgins has already seen some solid contributions from his younger players like Jimmy Lomas, Kyle Theriault and sophomore Hayden Lyle.

Even some of the freshman players, which generally spend their first year or two on junior varsity or the bench, will likely see significant time this season.

"Historically over the past few years freshmen haven't really cracked the lineup, but there are a few exceptions," Higgins said. "Right now Cam Iadeluca, Dom Grillo, those guys are going to prove to be solid defensemen, and they're going to get thrown into the fire right away."

When all is said and done, the Skippers first ever title defense will undoubtedly be an interesting storyline to keep an eye on, given their amount of youth and talent.

"I'm expecting for the team to be competitive, as we have been in past years," Martin said. "Defending the title won't be as easy, but again we're just going into every game looking to keep every game close, play as a team and win some games."

The Skippers official title defense begins tonight at 8 p.m. when they travel to take on Bishop Hendricken at Thayer Arena in Warwick.



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