January 27, 2007. It took a little scare on Friday night but the varsity Titans were able to clinch the NHC Red Division for the first time since 1989. The Titans won two games over the weekend, 3-2 over Sylvania Southview and 5-2 over arch rival St. Francis to clinch the division with one game remaining. It raises their conference mark to 7-1-1 (19-6-3 overall) while every other team in the conference has at least 3 losses.

The weekend didn't start off as planned. Friday, the Titans played Sylvania Southview on Senior night. It was a night that the seniors almost had nothing to celebrate. SJJ found themselves down 1-0 to the winless (in conference) and last place Cougars after two periods. It took a little while, and a lot of shots, but SJJ finally got on the scoreboard with a goal from Ray Morris off an offensive zone faceoff. A few moments later they were able to get their second goal to finally take the lead with a goal from Cody Mathews after good cycling from the line of Mathews, Mark Stansfield and Ben Wurst. An open net goal from Chase Parsell made it 3-1 with a minute to play but the Cougars came right back with a goal of their own to make it 3-2. The Titans made sure the score stayed that way and came away with a close 3-2 victory.

On Saturday, a much different and more determined SJJ team showed up to play their arch rival. The two teams had played two games previously with neither team able to beat the other as both games ended in a tie. The Titans came out and decided early that this game wasn't ending in a tie. Five 1st period goals stunned St. Francis and they found themselves heading into the 2nd period down 5-0 and needing to kill another penalty. SFS played much harder in the 2nd while the Titans stopped their momentum with several penalties. Tyler Marzec made several key saves to keep the Titans lead safe after 2 periods 5-1. One goal in the third by SFS was all that was scored and the final score was SJJ 5 and SFS 2. Shane Hetrick led the way with 3 goals and Tyler Marzec stopped 38 shots to earn the victory. The victory secured the first conference championship for St. John's Jesuit in 18 years.

Congratulations to all for a well earned conference championship. Keep up the hard work, the real goals are still ahead of you.