A Creighton-born athlete is, for the third time in his hockey career, an American college hockey champion.
Zach Garrett and the Univ. of Mary Marauders earned their second straight American Collegiate Hockey Association Division II (ACHA II) championship March 18, winning the silverware in a triple-overtime thriller.
Garrett, 27, grew up in Creighton and played in the Flin Flon Minor Hockey system before heading to the Athol Murray College of Notre Dame in 2010. Garrett played parts of two seasons with the Flin Flon Bombers before going through Saskatchewan’s junior B ranks and starting his college hockey career with Dakota College at Bottineau in 2016. After two years with that program and a national junior college title, Garrett moved from the two-year college to the Marauders, then a new program in Bismarck, N.D.
When Garrett joined the team in 2018, it was in its first year of play and Garrett was named the team’s first captain. Last year, the team won its first national title, doing so on home ice in North Dakota.
Fresh off last year’s big win, UMary, captained by Garrett, went on a tear, finishing the season with a 38-5-2 record and winning each of their last 20 games. Since a pair of losses to in-state rivals Minot State in early December, the Marauders went perfect the rest of the season.
In his sixth year in college hockey, Garrett paced UMary’s offence, finishing the season with 51 points in 39 games. Garrett played last season as a graduate player and was able, like other ACHA and NCAA players, to extend his college career by a season due to cancellations and postponements relating to COVID-19.
In the national title tournament in St. Louis, UMary entered as the top seed and took down the Univ. of Wisconsin in an 8-0 opening round victory in pool play, then defeated the Indiana Hoosiers 4-1. A victory over second-seeded Northeastern Univ. punched the Marauders’ ticket to advance.
That brought the Marauders to a final four matchup against the Lindenwood University Lions - Garrett himself scored the game-winning goal midway through the second period in a 6-1 victory, getting UMary and Garrett back to the national title game to defend last year’s championship March 18 against Florida-Gulf Coast.
The Marauders would score first in the second period and despite going down 2-1 into the second intermission, would tie the game in the third to send the game to overtime. UMary and their Floridian challengers would end up playing two full periods of bonus hockey before UMary’s Seth Cushing ended the game with a triple-overtime winner, giving UMary a second straight championship. Cushing, Garrett and teammates leaped toward a small contingent of fans who had made the trip to St. Louis and celebrated the victory - and Garrett, as team captain, got to hoist the champions’ trophy first.
“That was my last college game, and I don’t know if I wanted it to end,” Garrett said in a post-game interview with the ACHA.
“I love the guys in the locker room… this was just awesome.”
Garrett also finished the tournament as its MVP, putting up two goals and six assists in what will prove to be his college hockey swan song.
Garrett described his teammates at UMary, many of whom have played together since the program was founded four seasons ago, as a family when asked about the team.
“It doesn’t matter if you played one game, if you’re one of the guys that started it or if you’re a new recruit - we’re all a family and that’s what we build off of,” he said.
