Boston Latin Wolfpack to take on top-seed Tewksbury at TD Garden

The details are still fresh for Boston Latin School athletic director Jack Owens.

It was the Wolfpack boys hockey team he played for in 2001 that held a one-goal lead in the Div. 2 state final with about two minutes to go. Danvers rallied and scored the 4–3 game-winner with 50 seconds left, swiping the state title right from under their noses. Owens graduated in 2003 but made sure to be in attendance for a pleasant ending in 2005, when Boston Latin returned to the final and beat Saugus in overtime.

He remembers both games. They’re easier to recall as the only two state final trips in program history, but he remembers. Pride fills his heart with each one.

It’s a big deal then for Owens to see 11th-seeded Boston Latin make its run to TD Garden Sunday for its first Div. 2 state final trip since. They’re set to play top-seeded Tewksbury at 7:30 p.m.

One could say the same about any person watching their former high school reach such a stage. But as a public school out of Boston, which has seen a once proud and rich community of boys hockey programs since dwindle to just three teams, what the Wolfpack represent is much bigger than them.

“It’s just exciting, there’s a lot of buzz around the school,” Owens said. “It’s unique and it’s special. These guys come together, they’re not just playing for one community. They’re playing for really the oldest public school in the country, something really special, and they’re playing for the city of Boston.”

When current head coach Frank Woods became a student at Boston Latin in 1990, the school had switched from the Boston City League to the Dual County League. But as an assistant to former longtime head coach Dave Coleman, he certainly heard the stories of what the City League used to be.

He knows about the teams from Charlestown, South Boston, East Boston, Boston English, Latin Academy, and Boston Tech. He heard of the back-to-back games down at Matthews Arena.

“Every neighborhood in the city that had a high school, that’s how it used to be,” Woods said.

Now, the representation for those neighborhoods lies in the exam school’s players from different districts.

Senior captain Bobby Banks is the only player from South Boston on the team. Fellow senior captains Matt Carrara and Aidan Fitzpatrick come from Hyde Park. Others reside in Brighton, Roslindale, West Roxbury, Beacon Hill, North End and Dorchester.

All of those districts are seeing their first boys hockey state final appearance since Boston Latin last did it 19 years ago. The players know what they’re playing for.

“I have neighbors even down the street from me that played for that (2005 Boston Latin) team,” Banks said. “Just other neighbors in South Boston that either went to Latin School or grew up in that city during that time. Even then, they’re giving my parents the message or good word of good luck on Sunday.”

“I think we take (representing the city) as a feather in our cap for sure,” Woods added. “It’s a pride thing. … We try to remind them that we not only represent our school, but we represent the city itself.”

Part of what makes the state final appearance special for its opponent, Tewksbury, is that much of the team grew up together while playing on the same teams. Seeing that connection through to a state title game as seniors is significant.

In contrast, though, that’s also what makes such a feat so inspiring and impressive for Boston Latin.

Woods gave up trying to track the next class to watch out for at Latin School a long time ago. Testing into the school is challenging, and keeping up with the rigor of it to stay there is just as hard. He calls it impossible to map out who he’s going to get, so the program just works the best it can with whoever they’ve got.

“It’s unlike other places where kids grow up together, they go to the same primary schools and same middle schools,” Woods said. “They play the same youth hockey program since they were mites. Our kids, it’s a different type of program. That doesn’t happen here, so it’s unique.”

“These kids come from all different neighborhoods and get to know each other either in the seventh or the ninth grade,” Owens added. “There’s not that growing up with each other mentality that some of these schools have, that some of these neighborhoods have.”

It’s also not too often a No. 11 seed can make the run the Wolfpack have. Boston Latin was on the radar of many coaches as a team to not take lightly, but not many pegged this group as one to get as far as they have. Even as they’re set to play Tewksbury for a third time this year, 5–2 and 5–1 losses might not have hockey fans believing too much in an upset.

But the three senior captains have played a major role not only on the ice, but in helping a mostly young squad play some emotionally charged hockey. Since last losing to Tewksbury on Feb. 3, the Wolfpack have won nine of their last 10 games. Players like Banks have stepped up, and team defense has been phenomenal.

“I’d like to come up with a captain, senior answer that could reflect all three of us, but I mean, this is just as crazy to us as it is to anyone looking in and anyone on the team,” Banks said. “I think some of us are still a little bit shell shocked at just the fact we’re still going. … We kind of have this unique thing of togetherness.”

Woods says the whole team knows what kind of game it’s in for against the Redmen, and will need to play its best game of the year for a chance.

Rest assured, an entire city is in their corner.