Hockey players from Mt. Hope High are beginning to mesh well with their counterparts in the first year of a five-school boys' collaborative composed of Rogers, Middletown, Tiverton and East …
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Hockey players from Mt. Hope High are beginning to mesh well with their counterparts in the first year of a five-school boys' collaborative composed of Rogers, Middletown, Tiverton and East Providence. The team competes in Rhode Island Interscholastic League Division II under the name Hurricanes Hockey, 'Canes for short.
In addition, MHHS hockey alum and assistant coach Cam Rancourt remains on the staff led by head coach John Sheil. Bob Sheehan, Pete Geraghty and Cam Edwards are the other assistants.
Rancourt was part of the final, full-sponsored Mt. Hope team a year ago when the Huskies, formerly in a single co-op with East Providence, went 2-14-0 in D-II.
"Last year we only won two games and those were the only two games we really deserved to win...But we are a much, much, much better team now than we were last year." Rancourt said recently.
After a winless start in six outings, the 'Canes have found their footing in recent weeks, winning their last three games in a row to improve to 3-4-2 (9 points) in the league standings.
Rancourt continued, giving his latest assessment of the co-op following its win a 5-2 victory over the Coventry-Johnston co-op Sunday, Jan. 26, " I think we've played teams a little bit below our level and we have been playing at our level, and that's caused these three wins. Now with our schedule coming up, we've got tougher teams at the top of the division that we going to need to step up our game and see how we do against the better competition."
Rancourt was earlier in the winter and continues to maintain the locals are "on the right track" and that he is optimistic about the squad earning one of the 10 playoffs spots available in the 13-team league.
As for the rationale of entering into a larger collaboration with their counterparts from the south, Rancourt said of Mt. Hope, "We had to do it."
The school had only one returning goalie in senior Nakia Cheek, who himself only put on the pads regularly at the start of the 2023-24 season. As for skaters, the Huskies would have returned just seven seasoned players.
"This team would be a decent D-III team, like when back when I played, but still a bottom of Division III team," Rancourt, a 2019 grad, said of Mt. Hope's prospects attempting to remain with just East Providence this winter. "But that doesn't exist anymore. That's just not what Rhode Island high school hockey is anymore. For the kids' sake we had to adjust with the times."
The RIIL currently sanctions just two divisions for boys and one for girls.
Rancourt said joining up with Tiverton, Middletown and Rogers made sense because most of the Mt. Hope players competed together in the youth ranks on the Newport Whalers.
"They've played with a bunch of kids the kids from Tiverton, Middletown and Rogers already with the Whalers, so they know most of those kids. It basically had to happen," Rancourt said.
Seeing regular shifts from Mt. Hope are senior alternate captain and defenseman Quinn Frawley; juniors Ben Browne (center), Nathan Carpenter (wing) and Ethan LaBollita; sophomore wings Jack Godbout and Gavin Avila along with defenseman classmate Jackson Stringer. Two freshmen forwards, Kaia Brown and Jacob Lopes, are also seeing time. Due to injury, Lopes has served recently as the back-up goalie. Cheek is just returning to the team following an early absence. Two more freshmen, Jude Atwood and Alexander Deal, along with senior Chenxiang Ma have yet to play in a varsity game.
Rancourt credited Frawley will taking the lead among the Mt. Hope players, calling him a "a great leader, a great locker room presence." He said the other returnees have benefitted from the co-op because they now have "more talent players around them, so they're able to show their own skills better."
Of the 'Canes' recent winning run, Frawley said, "We've been working hard. We're all clicking. It took us a couple games, but now we're all settled in and we're ready, we're clicking, we're ready to roll. You can't take your foot off the gas. We've got to keep working."
In the road victory over Coventry-Johnston in West Warwick at the Mageira Rink last Sunday morning, the locals trailed 1-0 after the opening 15 minutes, but grabbed control of the contest in the middle stanza on a pair of goals by Evan Agren and another from Mt. Hope's Godbout, his first of the winter. Agren's tallies upped his team-high total to eight. Another Husky, Gavin Avila assisted on Godbout's goal. In the third, Avila also notched his first tally of the year off an assist from fellow Husky Browne.
The Hurricanes were coming off 4-1 victory over the South Kingstown/Westerly co-op Thursday night, Jan. 23, also at St. George's School rink in Newport Thursday, Jan. 23. Browne helped seal the victory with his third goal of the year in the third, off a neat back-door feed from Agren and the secondary assist to another Mt. Hope contributor, Ethan Labollita. It was Labollita's first point of the season.
In a 5-3 decision over the West Warwick/Exeter-West Greenwich goals from Colton Kerrison put the locals up 2-0 , his second tally coming off an assist Mt. Hope's Stringer. The helper was the first of the winter for the defenseman.
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