The Morgan, East Haven, East Hampton and Lyme-Old-Lyme co-op hockey team heads into the first round of states at their home rink on Tuesday, March 10, against East Catholic.
“Our heads are held high in hopes to make a huge run ahead of us,” said junior Benji Brown.
The co-op looks to relive their success last year where they won 7-3 to secure the DII state championship title against Cheshire last season.
“That game we knew we had to go in with a fast pace of play to earn every puck, which we practiced leading up to the moment,”said Brown.
Leading up to the championship, the two teams played each other in regular season play. In the beginning of the 2024–2025 season, East Haven played Cheshire resulting in a very close score of 5-4. “Knowing the game was close in the regular season, we knew we needed to score first and keep up the energy to secure a solid place to then just play position to get comfortable,” noted Brown.
This season the co-op regular season ended with a record of 17-2-1. The co-op did not walk into every game knowing they were going to win, they faced each game as a challenge to get better which proved their ending record claimed Brown. They headed into each game strong knowing that they had to prepare all season for their main goal of winning another state title. A few teams like Cheshire, Fairfield Prep, Lyman Hall were seen as a challenge to the co-op but never backed down knowing they had to prove who they were as a team. Walking out of those games, the co-op took the win but learned many lessons. Those lessons being the things they have to work on going forward when potentially seeing them again in post season play.
Early in the season the co-op faced an upset against Daniel Hand. The co-op traveled to Daniel Hand home rink losing 6-5. The reason why they lost to a lower ranked team was because they were not able to adapt to the game quickly which led them to fall short. The co-op learned many lessons from this game being to not get ahead of themselves and look down to any team, now knowing upsets can happen such as this game.
The co-op team started the post season kicking off the Southern Connecticut Conference on March 4th, 2026 winning 3-1 against Lyman Hall. Previous to SCC play, the co-op had an improvement from their close, 4-3, win earlier in the regular season. “Leading up to the first round playing Lyman Hall, we worked on specific things based on what we didn’t do successfully against them earlier in the season, so we were prepared,” said senior Breadan Steahle.
The co-op then advanced onto the DII SCC finals against Cheshire, where East Haven fell short, 0-3. “We started off slow, and we didn’t get a chance to set into the game like we usually do, properly, so it led us to not play [like] ourselves,” said Brown.
Heading into the first round of states, the co-op will see East Catholic at their home rink on March 10th, 2026 at 5:30. The co-op stands at the 2nd seed, East Catholic ended their season with 6 wins and 14 losses, which leads them to stand as the 15th seed out of 16 teams. The co-op and East Catholic teams have seen three similar teams this regular season: Amity, Cheshire and Lyman Hall. East Catholic lost to all three of those teams. Meanwhile, the script was flipped for the co-op team – winning against all three of those teams.
The three Morgan athletes (seniors Breadan Steahle, Zach Viens and junior Benji Brown), a part of the co-op, predict they will see Cheshire again in the state championship as Cheshire holds the first seed in the conference. “Going into the whole tournament, we need to keep playing how we have been all year and practicing how we do to prepare for big things ahead of us,” ended Steahle.
