The Wilmington High boys hockey team celebrates a 4-0 victory over Franklin during Sunday&#8217;s Division 2 state championship game at the TD Garden in
The Wilmington High boys hockey team celebrates a 4-0 victory over Franklin during Sunday's Division 2 state championship game at the TD Garden in Boston. JOEBROWNPHOTOS.COM

Sun staff photos can be ordered by visiting our MyCapture site.

BOSTON -- Ever since celebrating its first-ever state championship a year ago, all eyes have been on the Wilmington High School boys hockey team.

WHS 4, Franklin 0

All season the Wildcats were the clear favorites and the pressure mounted after every game. Sunday, they came as the heavyweight champion and, although it took a while, they once again sent Franklin to the canvas.

Six days after six different players found the back of the net in their North Sectional win, the Wildcats again relied on that elusive team effort as four different forwards scored goals, while junior goalie Drew Foley posted his ninth shutout as Wilmington skated off the TD Garden ice with a convincing 4-0 win over Franklin to capture the program's second consecutive Division 2 state championship.

Wilmington (21-3-2) led 1-0 after the first period. The score remained that way until the Wildcats erupted for three goals in the final period to knock out the Panthers for the second straight year, after edging them out 3-2 last year.

This was the third straight time Franklin lost in the state final, as Tewksbury won in 2011.

"Last year was more shocking spending all of that time trying to get it," said Steve Scanlon, who won his 284th game as the Wilmington head coach during his 23-year career. "But this year is more of a sense of an accomplishment for a whole bunch of them because it's tough to do it once, never mind a second time. Yeah, I think this one is more of an accomplishment."

Junior Cody McGowan, who has struggled all season trying to put the puck in the net, scored the game-winning goal -- and his third of the season -- with 1:27 left in the first period. Senior Anthony Castellano quickly sent the puck up ice to Dylan DiNatale on a breakout, and DiNatale was able to slide the puck from the left wing side to the right.

McGowan collected it and picked the top corner over the glove hand of netminder Devon Maloof (24 saves).

"I came up the ice and I saw Dylan with the puck and he just passed it over to me and when I came in towards the net I was getting hacked from behind, but I was still able to get the shot off and it went in," described McGowan. "The goalie is real small so we thought it would be good to go upstairs and I saw the opening and shot it there."

Senior Jake Rogers had a golden chance to score late in the second period on a breakaway but his shot nailed the crossbar, keeping it a one-goal game.

In in the third period, Wilmington went on the power play and Cam Owens, who was shifted to man the point, found a wide-open Brendan McDonough, who scored his sixth tournament goal in the past three games.

"I thought the power play opportunity was big and we moved Cam (Owens) back on the point and we seem to move the puck a little bit better when he's back there," said Scanlon. "He saw Brendan just hanging at the side of the net. Once that one went in, it hurt them psychologically. We were still skating pretty well towards the end of (the game). I think that goal started to push them back a little and we really controlled it from there."

Rogers made it 3-0 with 6:03 to go and Luke Foley added the fourth goal with 1:57 left to put the finishing touches on the scoring.

McGowan, McDonough, Rogers and Luke Foley had the goals, while DiNatale had two assists and Castellano, Owens, Cam Collins, Billy Falter and Austin O'Neal had single assists each.

"This is just unbelievable," said McGowan. "You can't put it into words. Last year it was the first time we ever won it so you didn't know what to expect and it took a lot longer to set in, but it's already sinking in with all of us. We're all on cloud nine and I really don't even know how to describe it."

Franklin had several outstanding bids especially early in the first but was denied by Drew Foley (15 saves), who improved to 37-7-7 in his two years in the net, including 10-0 in the tournament.

"We tried to focus on that to make sure our defensive zone coverage was tight and everyone was providing an extra effort when they were back there and I thought we did a good job at that," said Scanlon. "Our defensemen stepped up and played really well, and our forwards came back and (Franklin) was doing the same thing early on and it was a tight game. We did a good job in all areas of the game."

Franklin coach Chris Spillane said Wilmington was clearly the better team.

"We wanted to be physical (especially with their first line)," he said. "We know they are finesse players but if you take their space away and you are physical with them, it takes away from some of the things they can do. For some shifts we did it and then there were shifts when they held the puck in our zone for 45 seconds, moving the puck and our guys were getting tired. We were reacting instead of being proactive and playing angles. We seemed to be chasing the black puck around a lot more than they did."