By Mark A. de Bernardo
For The Dialog
The last three scholastic hockey seasons, Head Coach Sammy Gerdano has guided Saints Peter and Paul High School, a small school on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, to five wins, then 12 and this year 19 wins – and he has done it against the biggest and best private-schools’ hockey teams from the Washington and Baltimore metropolitan areas.
“It’s amazing what he’s been able to accomplish in such a short time – extreme improvement every year,” said Saints Peter and Paul Athletic Director D.J. Davis, “and this is just the tip of the iceberg.”
Some might call it David versus Goliath.
Every game the Sabres played this season was against a bigger school than Saints Peter and Paul High School – most much larger. Located in Easton, Maryland, the Catholic school in the Diocese of Wilmington has 191 students, 112 boys.
Among the large-school, perennial sports-powerhouse “Goliaths” which the Sabres toppled this season are:
- DeMatha (twice) — 900 boys;
- Calvert Hall – 1,200 boys;
- Saint John’s – 1,300 total students;
- Our Lady of Good Counsel – 1,289 total students; and
- Gonzaga – 960 boys.
The Sabres accomplished this en route to a 19-3-2 record in which they outscored their opponents 114-35.
The team scored 114 goals in a 24-game season and surrendered only 35 goals in those 24 games.
It earned Gerdano, 34, his third Maryland Coach of the Year Award – one at Gonzaga where he was an all-conference first-team forward and won championships as both a player and a head coach, and now two more at Saints Peter and Paul. Opposing coaches recognize Gerdano’s coaching excellence and have demonstrated it with their votes for top coach.
In addition, the Regina Coeli Council of the Knights of Columbus at SSPP Parish recently honored Gerdano with its “Coach of the Year” Award.
“I want us to be considered a tough team to play against,” said Gerdano. “That’s the goal, that and – of course – championships.”
The Sabres lost to only two teams this year, and four losses were by a single goal and two were in overtime. Their three losses to much-larger Saint Paul’s of Baltimore were by 1-0, 3-2, and 2-1 in overtime in the championship game in which SSPP led 1-0 with four minutes to go.
“Tip of the iceberg?”
SSPP will return the core of its team – 11 sophomores including four all-conference players headlined by star goalie Jackson Jancosko, who was named the first-team goalie in both the Mid-Atlantic Hockey Prep League (the D.C.-area private-school league) and the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association (the Baltimore-area private-school league).
Jancosko and star defenseman Daniel Schwaninger, a senior and also an all-conference performer, are two of the big reasons why Gerdano’s team only allowed 35 goals this season – an average of 1.46 per game.
“We felt like if we could score three goals in any game,” said Gerdano, “we had a good chance to win. Our defense and our goalie were rock-solid all year.”
Indeed. The Sabres only gave up four goals in a game once, and never allowed more than four. In one remarkable stretch of 11 games, the Sabres and Jancosko allowed a total of eight goals.
Among the 11 sophomores who will return next season is the team’s high-scorer Mason Roland, who figured prominently in what Gerdano named the team’s “biggest win of the season” against Gonzaga on Jan. 21 – in a game matching two teams undefeated in league play.
Gonzaga, playing on its home ice, led 1-0 as the seconds ticked away in the final period. With more than a minute to go, Gerdano pulled his goalie to add a skater in the offensive zone and increase the pressure on the Purple Eagles. And it worked – with 13 seconds left, Roland’s shot reached the back of the net, the goal light illuminated, and the Sabres had improbably tied it 1-1 against a hockey dynasty with eight times as many boys.
After a scoreless overtime, Roland again starred – jamming in the deciding goal for victory in a shootout the Sabres won, 2-1.
Scott Wilson, the SSPP principal, and Davis, the athletic director, share the excitement about the team Gerdano has recruited – in an area not considered a hotbed of hockey talent — and coached to the upper echelon of hockey programs in the Middle Atlantic region.
“We’re so proud of the incredible growth and standard of excellence that Coach Gerdano has created with his hockey program,” said Wilson.
“Coach is a great influence and a great man to be around,” says high-scorer Roland. “He motivates us every day, he teaches us a lot, and he has your back.”
Gerdano grew up in a hockey family in Fairfax, Virginia. His father, Samuel J. Gerdano, Jr. (Coach Sammy is Samuel J. Gerdano III), a successful D.C. lawyer, was a longtime Washington Capitals season-ticket holder.
Coach Gerdano’s 10-year-old nephew Gordie – named after NHL all-time great Gordie Howe – plays on several travel teams and scored in Lake Placid at the same arena where the U.S. team defeated Russia in the 1980 Olympics.
Gerdano played hockey on all-star travel teams since he was 7. After starring at Gonzaga (and winning a championship there), Gerdano went onto play three years of college hockey (ACHA Div. 1) at Syracuse University and has now moved onto coaching and three “Coach of the Year” Awards at age 34.
Could be the tip of the iceberg.
