A mix of the offense it displayed throughout the regular season and defensive prowess in the playoffs allowed Orchard Lake St. Mary’s to capture the Division 3 Championship this year for its first ice hockey state title since winning back-to-back titles in D1 in 2007 and 2008.

“It’s hard (to win a championship),” Eaglets head coach Brian Klanow said. “You’ve got to go through regionals, and you certainly have to be on your game. I think our team was playing its best hockey of the season (at its end), and that’s certainly what you want to do. You want to peak at the right time.”

The Eaglets did so in 2022 in order to reach the last step, but fell to Midland Dow 2-0 in the final. Two years ago, St. Mary’s lost a 6-5 overtime contest in regionals to Ann Arbor Father Gabriel Richard, and last year made it out of that stage before falling 3-1 to East Grand Rapids in the quarterfinals.

That made this winter a magical one for the players who have been around for some of those ups and downs.

“It’s unbelievable,” St. Mary’s senior goalie Will Keane said. “I’ve spent three seasons here. My first one was a struggle. We didn’t even win a regional, and I think the guys who were in that room knew it was pretty tough. Last year, we came in and I think we thought we had the team to do it. But if you don’t get a bounce, and you have to get lucky, and I don’t think we did last year, which sucks. But we came back out; we knew this year we had the team. We knew we could break that streak, and I think that’s exactly what we did. The result is unreal, nothing better.”

Defensively, the Eaglets were certainly peaking at the end of the season. St. Mary’s allowed just four goals in five playoff games, including a 3-0 shutout in the final over a Cranbrook team that had beaten them twice during the regular season. Allowing so few goals in a handful of games was the Eaglets’ best defensive stretch of the year, and the only time all season they went more than two games without giving up at least two goals in a game.

“We know that when we come out to play, we have to show up and show out, and during the playoffs it’s win or go home. So we have that in our mindset, and we just locked in,” Eaglets senior co-captain Jacob Fedor said.

Despite the performance to keep out goals, it was the fact that the Eaglets were an offensive juggernaut that made them formidable entering the postseason. St. Mary’s had one of the best attacks in the state, racking up 140 goals on the season, averaging nearly 4.7 goals per game.

The Eaglets were led by 26 goals from Thad Raynish and 19 goals from Charlie Roberts. Both are senior co-captains. But they also had plenty of depth. By the time the playoffs were over, the eventual champs had a half-dozen players with at least double-digit goals and two more players sitting on nine goals. So when the final came around, they weren’t solely dependent on Raynish or Roberts to score goals. Each of the captains picked up an assist, but it was other players who shouldered the load as the Eaglets’ scoring depth came to play in the most important game of the year.

The triumph this year gave St. Mary’s its fourth state title. The Eaglets finished with a mark of 23-5-2, setting a program record for wins in a season. That eclipsed the 22 wins they had in both the 200-04 and 2004-05 seasons.

“It feels great. It was a big win. The boys were buzzing. I’m just happy to be here. I’m enjoying it. We’re family, and that’s what we do: go out there and win,” Roberts said. “The difference between this year and previous years is, I think, that we were close this year. We all grew up playing with each other. Most of these guys played with each other before. It played a big role. We were like a family out there. You can’t beat that.”

That family will largely graduate together as well as the Eaglets were a team full of seniors — 16 in all — and will have to build back next year. But for now, the family will celebrate the Eaglets’ first state title in 17 years.