Fifty-four years would have to wait an extra day, but despite being pushed to a winner-takes-all Game 3 in their Division 1 finals showdown with Coventry, North Kingstown made it worth the wait, capturing the program’s second-ever championship and first title since 1967.
In that time, North Kingstown had been runners-up on seven occasions, all coming between 1997 and 2013.
“The last time they won it, I wasn’t even born,” noted North Kingstown coach Kevin Gormley. “We’ve been there plenty of times in my tenure. We’ve always come up a little short. We’ve had some great teams. We didn’t really need a state championship to validate what we do here … but it was really unbelievable. Fifty-four years in the making.”
A sweep of Pilgrim in the semifinals gave the Skippers yet another crack at it and, with a 4-1 victory in Game 1, they were closer than they had ever been. But Coventry evened things up with a 10-2 win in the second game to set up the finale.
