LAKE PLACID, N.Y. — A championship team relies on everyone to win. And when the usual suspects don’t score, others fill in.
Said Wisconsin-Stevens Point coach Chris Brooks: “We usually don’t win if the line of [Kyle] Sharkey, [Jacob] Barber and [Lawrence] Cornellier don’t score. They didn’t score last night, and we won. We had guys who stepped up this season.”
One of those guys who stepped up this weekend was Eliot Grauer, who wound up being named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player after a 5-1 victory over St. Norbert delivered the program’s fifth national championship and first since 1993.
Grauer scored twice in Friday’s game against Geneseo, playing a key role in the victory.
Then Saturday, even though that big line did produce the last three goals, it was Grauer who scored the first goal of the night to get things going.
“He was excellent this weekend,” Brooks said. “Talented, talented kid. Can’t say enough about his skill set. He’s a great player in Division III.”
Grauer ended this season with 13 goals and 16 assists for 29 points. But none were as important as the three goals in Lake Placid.
“It feels good,” he said. “It was a team effort. It was the work we did all year that got us here.”
As a junior, he’ll have one more shot to step up and get his team back to a national championship.
