For St. Joseph (Met.), 2021 was a long time ago.
That year, the Falcons celebrated its ninth title in 10 years. It never went two seasons without taking home the Kolodney Cup. As the puck dropped on the 2025-26 season, the team was in a four-year drought.
Behind a complete team effort, that slide didn’t stretch to five.
Alfonso Giaquinto broke a 1-1 tie with 2:38 left in regulation and Michael Sudia added a late empty-netter to lift top-seeded St. Joseph (Met.), No. 18 in the NJ.com Top 20, to a 3-1 win over second-seeded South Brunswick-North Brunswick-Monroe in the Kolodney Cup final at Woodbridge Community Center in Woodbridge.
This is the team’s 10th championship in the tournament’s 16-year history.
“I’m extremely happy for them because how hard they’ve worked,” said an emotional St. Joseph (Met.) head coach Ryan Carter.
“It was a season-long effort,” added AJ Shearer. “We said from the beginning if we just buy in as a team, we could figure it out in the end and that’s exactly what we did.”
Carter in particular was happy for the members of his senior class, one of which is Shearer. They had a chance at a title in 2024, but came up short against Monroe.
“As a freshman (Shearer) laid his heart on the line for the seniors and told them how he felt and what it means to him,” Carter said. “Just to see this culminate where we couldn’t win for four years and he was able to do it as a captain. We tried getting him off the ice at the end of the game and he wouldn’t take himself off.”
After the game went into the second intermission scoreless, despite St. Joseph (Met.) owning a 30-10 shot advantage, Shearer broke the ice 4:52 into the final frame.
Near the halfway point of the game, his squad owned a 26-3 shot advantage but Tristan Muniz was standing tall for South Brunswick-North Brunswick-Monroe. The senior has stopped 72 of 76 shots against St. Joseph (Met.) this season.
“I think he gets his eyes around well,” Shearer said. “We were getting people the net, but he was still getting his eyes on it and seeing the pucks coming in. And that’s why I think in the third period, we started getting a couple more bodies to the net.”
That one-goal lead only lasted for 1:45 before Matt DePalma tied the game with his 13th tally of the season.
Overtime was on the horizon — it hasn’t been seen in the Kolodney Cup final since the inaugural championship game in 2011 — but Giaquinto changed those plans. He put home a rebound off a rush shot from Connor Emmich, who had two assists, for his 11th goal of the season.
Of those 11 markers, four have come in the last nine days.
“He’s the hardest worker on our team,” Shearer said. “So for him just to grind that one out and tap that in, it was just amazing.”
“He’s just a dog,” added Carter. “He goes out there and he’s looking for those pucks. He’s a hunter on the ice.”
St. Joseph (Met.) tilted the ice for heavy portions of the game, stuck to its system and finally got rewarded.
The Falcons’ confidence is at its highest point in years and they’re riding a tidal wave of momentum going into the state tournament. They’ve won eight in a row and have gone nine in a row without a loss.
This is the program’s longest unbeaten streak since 2024 and the longest winning streak since December 2011.
“I am over the moon,” said Shearer. “I can’t wait.”
