Connor Holmes had a simple request for his Eisenhower teammate, Bode Farr, in their regional championship game against Romeo on Wednesday.

“I told him before the game, he has to score,” Holmes, a goalie, told Farr.

After 43 minutes and 23 seconds of dueling shutouts between Holmes and Romeo’s Landon D’Angelo, Farr made good on the request, snapping the scoreless tie midway through the third period.

Paired with an empty netter scored by Troy Aliotta with 45.7 seconds left, the Eagles secured a Division 1 regional championship, beating their archrival Bulldogs 2-0.

“It’s an unreal feeling,” Holmes said. “You know, the crowd, everything. Just coming out of those final seconds, just everything leading to it. It was just a really fun game. I mean, I think I played pretty well. I mean, I got the shutout, I was locked in. But, yeah, it was really fun.”

The stands at Suburban Ice Macomb were loaded before either team took the ice, giving the concluding squirt players concluding their practice the biggest crowd of their life. By the time the puck dropped, space around the boards was completely occupied.

The capacity crowd knew they could expect a good game, with the Bulldogs and Eagles splitting their regular season series one game apiece, both with thrilling conclusions.

“The energy was high, obviously,” said Eisenhower head coach Dave Erwin. “So talking to the guys before the game, I said ‘just don’t make the game bigger than it is.’ It’s a big game, and we all know that. But you know, if you can control your emotions — both teams are gonna come in nervous. As a team that can kind of control that in the beginning, you know, maybe capitalize on a mistake.”

Neither team made many mistakes. And when they did, Holmes and D’Angelo were there to clean them up — D’Angelo turned away 32 shots and Holmes racked up 39 saves in his second shutout of Romeo this season.

“You got him backstopping for you, it makes up for a lot of mistakes that get made out there,” Erwin said. “He’s just kind of a stopgap for us, it’s been huge for us all year. And just, gosh, I hate to say it, you almost expect it out of him. He’s that good of a hockey player, or goalie.”

Romeo head coach Matt Burke said that he emphasized to his team the importance of striking first in Wednesday’s game, and that the longer it stayed scoreless, the more he felt the momentum fall in Eisenhower’s favor.

“We had our chances too, so we can’t blame anyone but ourselves,” Burke said. “You know, we just need to have a better game from everyone — staff, me, my coaches, the players, everybody. They just needed to play better today and we didn’t.”

As expected of a contentious hockey rivalry, the game was physical from start to finish. Not counting two penalties apiece for end-of-game fights that broke out, Eisenhower was whistled for six and Romeo four.

Both teams were perfect on penalty kill.

Erwin admitted that, coming into this season, there weren’t any certainties regarding how good the Eagles would be this season, as they were coming off a 7-19-1 season and it was his first year as the head coach. They’re now 18-9.

“We had 12 guys, 12 seniors last year that left,” Erwin said. “I knew we had some good players coming in. How quickly are they going to gel? You know, are they going to buy in? I would say we found out pretty early, we thought we could be pretty good. But at this point, you know, I just feel like, I just keep telling the kids, we can play with anybody on any given day.”

Erwin and Burke both expressed respect for the other, and Erwin said he told Burke after the game that, if they were to play 10 times a season, he thinks they’d split the series down the middle at five games apiece.

“It’s a tough one, but, I mean, we got to hand it to Dave and Ike,” Burke said. “And they played hard and, you know, they shut us out twice.”

Eisenhower was the only team to shut out Romeo, whose season ends with a 17-8-2 record, falling just one game shy of back-to-back regional championships.

They graduate seniors D’Angelo, Christopher Paquette, Noah Sarrach, Drew Basha, Joseph Volpe, Drew Basha, Dominic Degenfelder, Lincoln Lipasek, Caleb Cusmano and Julian Gotinsky.

“I mean, they work hard, you know,” Burke said. “They all show up to practice, and they give their all. They all care about each other. They all have each other’s backs. They’re all friends, they all hang out besides hockey and stuff. And it’s just good to see them bond. And it’s tough to see them go, but the bond’s not broken. They just got to move (onto) a different part of their life, you know.

“But I got a lot of good sophomores, and I got a lot of good juniors. I can’t say I’m looking forward to next year yet, because it’s been about 15 minutes, but I know that there’ll be good times for us in the future.”

Eisenhower is now one of eight teams remaining in Division 1. They’ll put their season on the line in the state quarterfinals on Saturday, March 1 against five-time defending state champion Detroit Catholic Central (25-2) back at Suburban Macomb. Face-off is scheduled for 4:30 p.m.