ROCHESTER, N.Y. — As a program, BK Selects has been here before. 

 

Four years ago, the 16U team broke through for the program’s first USA Nationals championship. The next spring, the 14Us went all the way.

 

The quest for national crown No. 3 reaches its crescendo next week in America’s Midwest, as BK’s 15O team heads to Green Bay, Wisconsin, and the 14U squad travels to Plymouth, Michigan, to finish the 2025-26 season at Nationals.

 

“Now we’re at the end, when it matters the most,” said first-year 14U Head Coach Andrew Romano. “It’s been a really fun group to coach. They bring a lot of energy. They’ve been very coachable and continued to take strides all season long, and now we look ahead to the challenges at Nationals.”

 

After winning the New York state title earlier this month, the 14Us enter Nationals as the fifth seed, grouped for the round-robin with NE Pack league rival Mount St. Charles (R.I.), the Ohio Blue Jackets and the Palmyra (Pa.) Black Knights. They’ll have to finish in the top two of that group to advance to the quarterfinals March 27.

 

Meanwhile, the 15Os are seeded sixth after earning an at-large Nationals bid for their 40-win regular season. They’ll face Pittsburgh Penguins Elite, Florida Alliance and Shattuck St. Mary’s (Minn.) in the round robin.

 

While coach Jordan Seyfert’s team didn’t claim the Empire State crown, BK’s 15Os outscored foes 30-7 in the tournament, losing only by a single goal to the Jr. Sabres in the title game. 

 

Midseason addition Matyas Svrček (Plzen, Czechia) stood out, pacing all players in the 15O tourney with seven goals and 12 total points. This, on a team that already featured five point-per-game forwards — Bobby Spang, Bo Christini, Luca Filiaggi, Jackson Conroy and Matthew Lynn — while playing the second-toughest schedule in the country per MyHockeyRankings. 

 

And although the 14Us earned the auto-bid out of New York, their body of work was just as impressive as the 15O team’s. Standing at 45-10-2, Romano’s squad pieced together win streaks of nine and 12 games, in addition to a separate 12-game unbeaten run (10-0-2). 

 

“Our team has had very good chemistry all season,” said 14U leading scorer Sebastian Blanchard (Manlius, N.Y.) “We really come together and we play the game fast and aggressive and that leads us to success.”

 

Although a February loss to Mount St. Charles prevented them from taking a NE Pack title, the 14Us rebounded with a 5-0 record at States  that included a 6-4 defeat of the P.A.L. Jr. Islanders in the semifinal round and a 1-0 win over the Buffalo Jr. Sabres in the New York state championship game.

 

Romano pointed to BK’s third win of the round robin, 7-1 over the Syracuse Nationals, as the moment his team appeared to seize the moment.

 

“We really started to play our style in that game,” said Romano, who spent the previous three seasons as an assistant coach for BK’s 16Us. “When we play fast, we’re a really tough team to stop. Move the puck, move our feet, playing a really fast brand of hockey. 

 

“That’s a huge theme throughout the program. We want to constantly be in attack mode.”

 

Blanchard tied for the 14U tournament lead in scoring with six points (3g, 3a), along with St. Louis native Smith Vantine, who scored two goals and assisted on four others. Brody Trost (Los Altos, Calif.) paced all BK skaters with four goals, while goalies James Hickey (Staten Island, N.Y.) and Logan Horkey (Fort Myers, Fla.) combined to stop 101 of 107 shots (.944 SV%) at States. 

 

“I think our team succeeded at States because we put in a lot of work before the tournament,” Blanchard said. “We have been practicing hard and working really hard to get ready, so we can go to (Nationals) and do the best we can. The feel has been great around the team and it will only continue to get better.”

 

Blanchard certainly excelled in his 14U season, posting 42 goals and 110 points in 54 games after joining BK from the Syracuse Nationals program. 

 

He said he feels his consistent competitive streak has led to success, as has being surrounded by similarly ambitious young student-athletes at BK.

 

“Getting to play with better players and against better competition every day has made me, and everyone else here, better as a player and person,” Blanchard said.

 

Now, BK’s two youngest boys teams will sink their teeth into the finest competition USA Hockey has to offer. 

 

The focus over the past two weeks hasn’t changed a bit, though. The overarching idea is to ratchet up the intensity on the practice ice so nothing the players face in competition will be a shock to the system.

 

“We’re going to be challenged heavily out there one day at a time, like we’ve been doing all year,” Romano said. “We want every single day to be hard, so when we get to the weekend, we’ve already played the hardest team of the week, and that was us at practice. 

 

“The competitive level the boys bring to the table, it’s a lot of fun and a great environment to be a part of every single day.”

 

Both teams begin their Nationals quests Tuesday, March 24.