MANCHESTER, N.H. — Sunday's championship tilt with Hanover has been five years in the making for Pinkerton head coach Casey Kesselring, who inherited a team in 2003 that went 4-42-2 in its three previous seasons.
Despite its enormous population, Pinkerton was never close to becoming a hockey power when Kesselring took the helm.
In just five seasons the former Merrimack College forward has taken a program that may have been on the brink of extinction and instead has the Astros on the brink of their first championship.
"The gap between us and the top teams in the state has been thinning for a while," said the Ontario native after his team downed two-time defending state champion Bishop Guertin 2-1 in the semifinals last night.
"Earlier this year, I thought we actually played these guys better. We lost the game (2-1), but it was more of an even game. We were dominated in the first period (last night). We know we can compete with anyone in the state."
Not only has Pinkerton never won a state championship, the Astros have never appeared in a title game dating back to the NHIAA tournament's inception in 1947.
"We have great systems in place," said junior goaltender J.J. Solloway. "We know that our system works. We have a lot of speed and we just believe it."
Though Pinkerton took a 1-0 lead into the first intermission last night, Kesselring was nowhere near pleased with how his team had played, getting outshot 17-5.
"It was time to light a fire," he said. "I told them that they worked too hard to get thrown around like we were. We weren't doing enough. We came out in the second period and looked like a different team."
Suffice to say the pep talk worked.
"We were fired up," Solloway said of the attitude entering the second period. "We knew that all we had to do was work harder than (Bishop Guertin) and execute."
Hanover on the horizon
Pinkerton will go toe-to-toe with Hanover on Sunday afternoon (4:45, Verizon Wireless Arena) for the Division 1 state title. The Astros beat the Marauders 3-1 earlier this season, but Hanover is 8-1 in its last nine games.
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