Behind senior Sean Velozo’s 34-save shutout and an early third-period goal from junior Brody Kabilian, the No. 12 Archbishop Williams Bishops (13-10) gutted out a 1-0 upset win over No. 5 BC High in a Div. 1 second-round boys hockey matchup Sunday afternoon at UMass Boston.
As a fifth seed last year, Archbishop Williams suffered a historic upset loss to No. 28 Weymouth in the first round. Now, the Bishops are in the state quarterfinals for the first time since 2020, set to play No. 4 Catholic Memorial.
The loss was just the Eagles’ second in their last 10 games.
“Last year, that was devastating to us,” said Archbishop Williams head coach Chris Cunningham. “We felt like we put Archies on the map again. It’s been a little while, and to have that disappointment, it lasted the whole offseason. So, it definitely motivated us. … Today was just survival, that game could’ve went either way. But we stayed strong.”
“It’s great,” Velozo added. “Last year was a big upset. We knew we had a (good) team this year. We knew BC High was a good team, and we just brought it to them.”
BC High (12-7-3) packed plenty of heat throughout the first two periods, delivering bruising hits and near-misses on the attack.
Cam Berry and Griffin Faherty led a strong defensive effort to limit the quality of the Archies’ 18 shots-on-goal, and sophomore Drew Karlovits (27 saves) played his typical shutdown game.
Archbishop Williams came out of the second intermission buzzing, though, and got the puck in a pinball-like scramble in front within the first two minutes.
After three Karlovits saves, Kabilian buried the 1-0 lead at the backdoor post with 13:05 left to play.
“We talked about it before we got out there,” Kabilian said. “Said we’re not going to go out there and shoot it from the hashmarks, it’s going to be a gritty goal. We all just crashed the paint, cause chaos, and I was fortunate to put it in there. … We know who we are, we just kept doing what we were doing.”
The goal was Kabilian’s fourth of the postseason after posting a hat trick in the first round, catching up on lost time from an injury-riddled season that saw him play only three regular season games.
“He came back from one injury, then was hurt again,” Cunningham said. “Not knowing if he was going to get the cast off (his wrist), (he) skated every day with us. As soon as he’s let out, he has a hat trick and a goal here — one of the bigger goals probably in school history. Unreal. Unreal story.”
The Eagles banged on the door by producing than a half-dozen loose pucks in front, and were seemingly an inch or a second away from capitalizing on any of them. They also fired at least 10 shots on goal in every period.
Kevin Fitzgerald, Scott O’Brien and Robbie Cibotti combined for several heads-up plays to clear the puck out of dangerous spots to aide Velozo’s performance, and Cunningham lost track of blocked shots with how many the Bishops got in front of.
The shutout is just another part of an impressive turnaround for Velozo, who was pulled from a 5-1 loss to Catholic Memorial right before the Buddy Ferreira Classic.
He’s starred ever since.
“(Velozo) has been dialed in and really focused,” Cunningham said. “He never panicked at any of those situations. Can’t say enough about him and how he took the challenge, and he’s run with it so far.”
Now, Velozo has a chance for redemption against Catholic Memorial to help Archbishop Williams get to the Final Four.
“Everyone has bad games, and I’m ready to bring it to them,” Velozo said. “I think we can beat them, hopefully. They’re a good team, but we can beat them.”