It’s the speech every coach dreams of making.
With Upper Arlington up 1-0 through two periods against Cleveland St. Ignatius in the OHSAA state championship game Sunday at Nationwide Arena, Golden Bears head coach Craig Hagkull had the chance to address his team in the locker room during intermission, just one period away from history.
What he said clearly worked. After all-state goalie Mason Herndon helped push the Golden Bears through the first two periods, Upper Arlington came out and scored four straight goals in the third, cementing the school’s first hockey championship with a 5-2 victory.
“We got in there and we talked about how if we had told these kids after our first practice of the year that we had 15 minutes with a 1-0 lead to win the state title with this guy in net, would we have taken it? Of course we would have,” Hagkull said. “But the message was that it’s 15 hard minutes, and we have to do the little things – get pucks in, get pucks out.
“We just came out on fire. We got that second one, Jason (Davis) had two in the third. Once we got that third one, I knew we were going to win the game.”
Jason Davis and Ben Spence scored a pair of goals for a senior-laden Upper Arlington team, while Connor Hagkull also tallied. Spence added an assist for a three-point game, and Tate Rook pitched in a pair of helpers as well.
The Golden Bears program was established in 1977 and has long been one of the best in the area, and this was the team’s fifth trip to the state final four and its first to end with a victory. Upper Arlington is the second Central Ohio program to win it all, joining Powell Olentangy Liberty, which captured the crown in 2023.
“I’m kind of in shock right now that we won it,” Herndon said. “Just overjoyed.”
Herndon was one of the major reasons for the victory, saving his best for the title game. The first-team All-Ohio choice kept the high-scoring Wildcats at bay with seven saves in the first period and then 15 in the second as the defending state champs pushed to get on the board.
Add in Herndon’s 12 third-period saves and he had a shutout going until there was 1:01 on the clock. Herndon finished with 34 saves.
“I’d love to try to say that surprises me, but it honestly doesn’t,” Coach Hagkull said of his goalie’s play. “He’s done it all season. He’s the best goalie in high school hockey in Ohio by far in my opinion. If he doesn’t stand on his head in the first period, we’re not having this conversation today for sure.”
Spence gave Upper Arlington a lead they would not lose when he scored 1:04 into the second, and the floodgates opened in the third. Connor Hagkull doubled the UA lead just 1:08 into the final frame and Davis made it 3-0 1:28 later. Spence and Davis (shorthanded) then scored 1:36 apart in the middle of the frame, and from there, the win was assured.
Nick Miller and Sam Elwell scored in the final 61 seconds for St. Ignatius, which was seeking its ninth state title after beating Toledo St. Francis in overtime to get to the final. Dominic Filizetti made 20 saves.
In the end, though, Upper Arlington was too much. The Golden Bears entered the game ranked No. 1 in the state final four, scored seven straight to sweep aside Mentor, 7-2, in the semifinal, and had a boisterous crowd behind them at Nationwide Arena for the title game just minutes from the school’s campus.
“It was really nice to look up and see UA is a hockey school,” Coach Hagkull said of the fan support. “The students were totally into it. It felt great.”
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