Farmington Falcons earn D3 state title with win over Sault Ste. Marie

PLYMOUTH – All the ingredients were there.

Sault Ste. Marie was in the Division 3 state final game last season, losing to Cranbrook Kingswood.

Getting back to the championship game this year, one would surmise that the Blue Devils would use last year as motivation to get one more win this season.

Farmington, on the other hand, had a decided home-ice (or at the very least, a home-peninsula) advantage with the school located just minutes from Compuware Arena.

Home ice paid off as the Falcons earned their first state championship in a hard-fought 2-1 win Saturday afternoon at the Compuware Arena.

It also didn’t hurt that Farmington had a guardian angel watching from above.

Sophomore forward Jason Petras’ mother, Kim, succumbed to colon cancer last month and wouldn’t you know that Petras scored both goals for the Falcons.

“(Petras) has been a warrior and a catalyst for this hockey team,” said first-year Farmington coach Bill Newton, himself battling colon cancer. “For Jason to come out today and score two goals to win us a state championship … she was looking after us.”

“I know she played a role in how I played this week,” added Jason Petras. “She’s my biggest fan and she was with me this week.”

The Falcons got on the board first as Petras’ deflected shot beat Sault goalie Nick McKenzie just 38 seconds into the game.

Farmington made it 2-0 at 13:17 on Petras’ second and the Falcons looked to be on a mission as that lead took the two teams into the first intermission.

“In every one of our playoff games to get here, we scored first, so we knew we had to get off to a hot start,” Petras said. “We just got pucks on net and I was there to deflect them. I give a lot of credit to my teammates and my linemates.”

The Blue Devils outshot Farmington 9-8 over the first 17 minutes.

Blake Mastaw took a page out of the Falcons’ book with a quick goal to open the second period as he batted in a loose puck in front of goalie John Lethemon just 18 ticks into the middle frame to cut the Farmington lead to 2-1.

Throughout the game, chants of “Johnny! Johnny!” and “MVP! MVP!” were directed at Lethemon, but he didn’t want to talk about the attention after the game.

“It’s a great feeling, but I can’t thank the guys enough,” said Lethemon. “It’s crazy. I don’t think anyone in the state of Michigan, except for the other 19 guys on this team, the coaches, trainers and our parents, thought we could do this.”

“We’ve faced probably a half-dozen solid goaltenders this year and (Lethemon) was definitely one of the best,” Sault coach John Ferroni said. “I put our goaltender in that group, too, and you can ask other coaches.”

The rest of the second period had action, but no more scoring.

Sault continued to outshoot Farmington, 13-12 in the period.

The third period mirrored the second – plenty of chances and yet, no goals.

Sault called timeout with 3:31 left and then pulled McKenzie with 1:14 to play, but could not get the equalizer.

Final shots favored the Blue Devils by a 30-22 count as Farmington managed just two shots over the final 17 minutes.

“We traveled over 5,600 miles this year and it’s just an honor to be down here at the final four to participate in all of this,” said Ferroni. “Our season could have ended two weeks ago, but this season was worth every mile on the bus.

“We faced a lot of adversity this year and we went on a winning streak from Christmas to today. We have nothing to hang our heads about or be ashamed of.”