Sherwood, who finished the Southern Ontario Secondary Schools Association (SOSSA) tournament in St. Catharines with a 1-1 record, faced Blessed Trinity in a challenge match, with the winner getting a birth at OFSAA.

In the SOSSA final on Tuesday afternoon, host Denis Morris of St. Catharines edged Sherwood 2-1.

Dan McKeen scored the Saints’ only goal. “We played very well, but had difficulty scoring,” said Saints head coach Ron Teufel, who noted his troops fired a lot of rubber at the Denis Morris net.

“Our back-checking wasn’t great.”

Sherwood opened SOSSA with a 3-1 win over Notre Dame of Welland.

Dennon Koziol, Spencer Ryckman and Nick Kuiper scored the goals for Mountain school. Sherwood returned to SOSSA after winning their second straight city public high school Division 1 boys championship, their fifth in the last seven years, with a thrilling 4-3 overtime triumph over the Saltfleet Storm at the Dave Andreychuk-Mountain Arena March 4.

Mitch Nardi scored the winner for the Saints at the 4:07 mark of the extra frame.

Following a Saltfleet giveaway in their own end, Saints forward Yanni Rallis passed the puck to Nardi at the front of the goal who fired it in the back of the net.

“It was awesome,” said Nardi, who added the Saints strategy in overtime was to press the Storm in their own end.

“Put pressure on them and keep getting pucks deep, that was the main goal.”

Saltfleet, who finished third in the regular season, nearly knocked off the first-place Saints early in overtime.

About two minutes into OT, Saltfleet forward Kelly Kyle had a chance to win it for the Storm, but was foiled at the lip of the crease by Saints goalie Joel Inouye.

“It was nerve-wracking making one save let alone making a save like that,” said Inouye.

“I knew as long as I kept the puck out of our net, we’d score on their net.”

Brad Kenner, Nick Kuiper and Spencer Ryckman scored the Sherwood goals.

Shawn Wood scored twice for the Storm. His second came with 1:56 left to play in the third period to tie the game at three.

Andrew Becker scored the other Saltfleet goal.

The last two minutes of the third period and much of the overtime featured exciting end-to-end action.