![\"Bellmore-Merrick](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Long-Island-hockey.jpg\")
Bellmore-Merrick celebrates after winning the state championship in high school boys hockey. Bellmore-Merrick Athletics<\/p>\nBellmore-Merrick hockey is finally top dog.<\/p>\n
After years of painful exits, the Bulldogs have conquered the Empire State and are, for the first time, New York\u2019s reigning champions.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou learn a lot from losing,\u201d head coach Patrick Braglia told The Post, adding that he\u2019s been on the wrong side of nearly half a dozen state tournament heartbreakers, including one in triple overtime.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese guys understood what it was to lose and what it feels like. I think the older guys, our seniors, especially, were able to keep the room believing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Braglia\u2019s proud pound, which exacted revenge on Long Beach in the process, is heading to Plymouth, Minn., for the USA Hockey National Championships next week. <\/p>\n
They iced the state tournament with a 4-2 thriller over St. Francis of Buffalo, where Bellmore-Merrick trailed early and could hardly hold on to a 2-2 tie late in the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the third period, it was like they were the Canadians and we were the Americans,\u201d Braglia said, comparing the championship to the men\u2019s Olympic gold match.<\/p>\n
Forward Jackson Austin became the hero with under three minutes to go by getting a deflection goal that put the Bulldogs up 3-2, a lead they padded on an empty-netter on after a ferocious six-on-five attack for nearly 90 seconds.<\/p>\n
Bellmore-Merrick celebrates after winning the state championship in high school boys hockey. Bellmore-Merrick Athletics<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had to have blocked, I don\u2019t know, 10 shots in that short amount of time,\u201d said Braglia.<\/p>\n
The boys are taking some well-earned rest before shipping out to Minnesota, as their head coach said the focus is on themselves rather than on anticipating a matchup with some of the other 15 best teams in the U.S.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about staying the course. We don\u2019t really worry too much about what other people do. We really try to play our game,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a full buy-in from every guy \u2014 all the time. It\u2019s a special type of environment to be in.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bellmore-Merrick hockey is finally top dog. After years of painful exits, the Bulldogs have conquered the Empire State…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[1245,14187,5,9955,43],"class_list":["post-501250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hockey","tag-high-school-sports","tag-high-schools","tag-hockey","tag-long-island","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116221990091257657","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}