St. John’s captain Andrew Kurowski scored two goals and the Cadets held off a late rally by defending champion Landon to defeat the Bears, 4-2, and win the school’s first MAPHL AA title before a raucous crowd at The Gardens Ice House in Laurel on Friday night.

It was a rematch of the 2020 championship game (the MAPHL cancelled the 2020-21 season because of the COVID-19 pandemic), but with a different winner and the first season since 2009 that the MAPHL’s top flight title was not won be either Landon (five titles) or Gonzaga (six titles).

Kurowski took advantage of a defensive miscue just over six minutes into the game, intercepting a pass directly in front of Landon’s goalkeeper Leo Quattrone and scoring on a nifty move to open the scoring. Andre Serra increased the Cadets’ lead to 2-0 three minutes later with an unassisted, power-play goal.

Kevin Fou got Landon on the board with a power-play strike at 6:30 of the second period. Owen Calderone and Zaakir Khan picked up assists on the play. Just 29 second later, however, St. John’s regained a two-goal lead with Connor Hall scoring the eventual game-winner at 7:59.

It looked as if the two-goal lead would hold up but a mad scramble in front of the Cadets’ net resulted in a penalty shot being awarded to Landon with just 20 seconds remaining in the game. Calderon took full advantage by deking the Cadets netminder Chase Hornbecker and making the score, 3-2.

Landon couldn’t muster the tying goal, with Kurowski capping his sterling performance with an empty net tally with 13 seconds remaining.

The Bears outshot the Cadets, 32-18, with Hornbecker making 30 saves and Quattrone stopping 15.