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A hearty hello and welcome to you for the final time in this 2016-2017 hockey season.
Toe for the boards with Mike Casillo.
Hi there everybody.
Dr. Blevins joined by the man behind the mustache.
The head coach of the NC State ice hockey team, Mike Casillo.
Coach, thanks for being with us.
You're doing well.
As always, we're here live on location at Mo's Southwest Grill in Cameron Village.
You can learn all about them at 919.catering.moes.com or 919.993999.
Coach, it's been a long time since we've been able to convene and talk about the NC State
hockey season, but let's go ahead and go all the way back to the beginning of this
semester.
A tournament against Virginia Tech, Louisville, and Liberty, all ranked teams, and you come
away two-in-one second place in that tournament, surely that had to feel good to be two ranked
teams in one weekend.
Yeah, it felt great.
I mean, the guys were excited about going there, and they know they always put on a good
show up in Liberty, and yeah, it was quite a weekend of hockey, it was good for us.
And we certainly don't want to stay on talking about that topic for too terribly long, but
one of the most memorable games in NC State hockey history takes place in that weekend.
You go down to Louisville, five to one in the first period, come storming back to 7-7,
and beat the number seven team in the southeast in a shootout eight to seven.
What were your emotions like after that hockey game?
I think everybody was kind of shot a little bit from that one.
We talked in between the first and second about if you're just going to stand around
and you're just going to give teams the opportunity to take advantage of you, nothing good is
going to happen of it.
So we asked them to make a few corrections in their game, and they went out and they
did so in the second period.
Obviously, we had a much better period.
I mean, first period, Louisville is a good team, right?
There's no doubt about that, but I mean, we were just flat and just kind of standing
around.
And once we got a couple, you know, guys started to feel like, hey, we can do this, you know?
And they're feeling that way, it's a good thing, right?
But there was a lot of emotion on the bench and in the locker room, and so it was an
exciting game.
You come back home, you take on the Clemson Tigers.
That's a non-conference matchup, but one that historically been pretty good.
Clemson's a very good team hanging out in the division three ranks.
You beat them five to two.
It was a commanding victory, although the score might not say it.
A little bit of a slow start, a little bit of a slow second period.
But when you look at the way that game went, was that one of the games where you thought
this team is back to where they normally are, getting so many wins in the early part of
the semester?
I actually thought that more in the Virginia Tech game, the day after we played Louisville.
Just by the way, the guys were rolling the lines and things were clicking and, you know,
a lot of good things would happen.
And I kind of felt like it was going to be a good second half.
Clemson, yeah, we always have really good games with them.
And that was big coming back home and getting our first second semester win against that
team was big.
NC State plays a fair amount of non-conference games, and this year, with the way the ACCHL
was set up, you get a fair amount of games against teams in the league that don't count
for points.
How important is it to be able to win those games against teams that aren't in the ACCHL,
though?
I mean, it's equally as important, right?
Every time you go out, you're playing the win.
So, I mean, obviously, the ACC game has a little bit more at stake because it's got
the points.
And, you know, you've got to make the end of season tournament.
But other than that, the guys go out with the same mentality every game we play to win
them all.
And, you know, it's good when you go out and get the ACC points, or whether you just
beat an ACC opponent and whether it counts or not, it's always a good feeling when you're
going in.
And because it gives you a feeling when you go into the tournament, you never know who
you're going to see, and you don't always see teams that you've been seeing.
So it gives the guys a feeling like, hey, you know, it's not just our division, but
it's this league that we can win in.
And you had to make a quick transition from playing non-league games to playing league
games on the 27th and 28th of January, as the Charlotte 49ers come into town.
You defeat Charlotte 4-3 in a tight contest, pardon me, Zach, using your, actually, gave
Charlotte the lead in the third period.
What did you see out of your team in that third period, especially, that proved that
they were going to be able to win that game?
And how proud of you were you of your squad that they were able to pull out a victory?
Yeah, I mean, I'm always proud of my guys, you know.
Win or not, to me, it's about how they play.
And we knew going in, we had a couple of league games and we weren't in the end of season
tournament.
And, you know, if you want to get there and you want to win your last three games, well,
you can't do that unless you win this first one, right?
And so the guys knew how important that was.
And a lot of resiliency in our guys, you know, being down and fighting to get back and a
lot of belief in themselves and the teammates and stuff, and that's what I saw a lot of.
And that's something the coach always wants to see in these guys and, you know, they went
out and they got the job done.
That's a game where Will Beaverdorf comes back, actually tips in the game winning goal.
First time you had actually been able to see him healthy since the Elon game back in October
when you saw him be able to score that goal.
What were your thoughts and emotions about that?
I mean, I was real happy for him, just, you know, you could see it, you know, in his face
that, you know, he, you know, getting that goal and, you know, I had seen him in practice.
So he's, it's not like I haven't seen him play.
He's been practicing with us, you know, so I knew he was kind of ready because I, you
know, check on him during practice at times and check on him afterwards.
How'd you feel the other night and how's everything going?
Everything's good.
You think you're ready to go?
You sure you're ready to go?
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, so I knew he was ready and I didn't really have much doubt that once he got out
and got involved in it that he'd be ready to go and it was about him getting that confidence
and that feeling of just being back, you know, on the ice with the guys and, you know, scoring
always helps that, right, so I was very happy for him, yeah.
It appeared like you came out a little bit flat against Wake Forest day after though,
beating Charlotte going up against Wake Forest team that had beat you two times previously
dating back to last season. What exactly happened for the flat start against Wake Forest?
You know, it's not only against Wake Forest. If you go back and you watch a lot of our
games, we do start very slow, and it drives me nuts if you want to know the truth. I don't
know what it is. We talk about starting strong, finishing strong, and you know, all that.
We talk about that in practice, and we talk about that before the game, and then we talk
about it between the first and second. Why did we start slow? It's just the way these
guys kind of have been. I mean, the game on Saturday night was a big emotional game, and
I know once we won that, we pretty much locked ourselves into the end of season tournament,
which is where the guys wanted to be, so I'm sure there was some celebrating after the game,
shall we say? Not that they weren't ready to go and play Wake Forest, but you know,
sometimes when you play a big emotional game and then you go and play another one, it's
not always as easy to play that second game, and I think that was pretty evident. You know,
we were flat. Again, Wake Forest had a great year. Dave did a great job with those guys,
but I just don't think that we really gave our best effort in that game.
And that's a game that not only takes you out of any potential chance to be first in
the ACC, but also takes you out of a chance to win the Division of the Second, as that's
what locked the Division title for Wake Forest into place, so you knew automatically the
highest seed you were going to get in the tournament was fourth. Did that change the
way you looked at any of the games going down the rest of the regular season, knowing you
were going to be in the tournament, but knowing that you, odds are, weren't going to be one
of the higher seeds? No, it didn't change the way I looked at it. I mean, yes, we did,
we definitely knew going in that we had a chance. We would not, I don't think we could
have, we could have caught UVA. I think they had one lockdown, but we could have won our
division. And it always, you know, you get into situations where it depends if we do
this and they do this kind of thing. And I always go out and tell the guys, if you go
out and take care of business, we don't really have to worry about what anybody else does.
But you know, this wasn't the case. So we knew going into it, but again, they got into
the end of season and I think that was just a big relief, you know, because I mean, it
was a bit of a rough season, you know, with all the injuries and stuff like that. So I
think the guys were just excited to be able to go to Charlottesville for the tournament.
But as far as who we play, it doesn't really matter, you know, because there was still
some games that we played that night and then there was still some games the following weekend.
So I just can't get into this tic-tac-toe board of well, if this one and that one and
who does this and well, this one won't lose because they never lost to this team, whatever.
I know where we are. Just call me and tell me what, you know, who found, who wound up
where and what team we're playing and we'll be ready to go. And that's just always really
the way I've been. And I don't really plan on changing that.
And the NC State Wolfpack had to be ready to go in the next week, a rare weekday game
for the NC State Wolfpack. And this one was a little bit more special as you got to go
to PNC Arena, home of the Carolina Hurricanes, and take on your archrival in the North Carolina
Tar Heels. First of all, the atmosphere was tremendous, just shy of 6,000 people. Their
full broadcast set up on both sides and an excellent hockey game as well. When you stepped
out onto the ice, onto the bench and you looked up and saw just how many people had come to
see collegiate hockey in North Carolina. What were your thoughts?
Well, the interesting thing about that is when they went on to bend the ice for warm-ups,
I kind of walked out the tunnel and I kind of poked my head up and I'm like, oh, what
time did they open in the doors? Because there really wasn't that many people there. Now,
I had been at the ring from four o'clock in the afternoon and I saw all the tailgating
set up because it was a really nice day. So I figured, okay, maybe, you know, people
are outside. When I got over to the bench and I looked up, it was only a small amount
of people in the middle section and I was thinking that we would have done better than
this and all of a sudden, I look up and I see people moving all over and I'm wondering
what, you know, something's going on. You know, this isn't normal and it was like the
floodgates opened and all of a sudden, people are just coming in and they're filling seats
and you just saw that everything grow halfway around the bottom bowl. And I was like, oh
my God, this is huge. And the guys are seeing this too, you know, and the more people that
are coming in, they're more like, hey, look at this, hey, look at this. And they're getting
excited about it, you know. And so it was an incredible, incredible game. Again, obviously
a lot of emotion. Jeff Volkman, the UNC coach did a tremendous job because he really put
that together because technically that was their home game and he did an awesome job
with it. That was a lot of fun. I mean, I talked to a lot of people after that that
were at that game and they just like, I can't believe that you guys did that and we had
a really good crowd. You know, Duke and UNC played early in the year and I think they
got like 1500 people. And so I'm pretty certain that PNC was not expecting the crowd that
they got for this game. It was so interesting to talk to staffers from PNC after the game,
a couple of whom were parents on the state team and the panic that the staff had gone
into seeing how many people were there, unbelievable atmosphere, but the result perhaps was even
better, especially for your NC State Wolf Pack. This is a tight hockey game. This was
a well-played hockey game on both sides. We got to see best on best, which is what you
hoped for in these situations, but Sam Banishevitz doing what he does, coming up in the clutch
situation. How appropriate was it for the team captain, a guy who admits six, seven
games earlier in the season to be able to come back and score the game winner against
North Carolina? Yeah, I mean, it's so, the guys just get so pumped when he scores. You
know what I'm saying? I mean, that guy just loves scoring goals and it radiates throughout
the team. You know, his excitement that you see on the ice is like in every other guy,
you know, and, you know, going over to the glass and jumping and looking up and just
seeing it's not just the people right in front of you, man. They're packed around too. It
was great. We had a really good crowd there, you know, for state being, you know, the location
it is, you know, we had a good amount of people there. So it was real exciting. And then to
go out and score, I think was the next shift that Jack popped one in and kind of wrapped
the whole thing up. It was pretty special. Put an ice bow on an excellent event as NC
State took the first annual backyard brawl by a final count of three to one. We'll step
aside and take a short break and coming up on the other side, we'll talk about the conclusion
to the NC State season, the ACC HL tournament and what to look forward to in the future.
This is over the boards with Mike Casillo on pack TV.
For the final time this regular season, we welcome you back inside of Moe Southwest
Krill in Cameron Village in Raleigh, North Carolina over the boards with Mike Casillo,
Drew Blevins alongside the head coach of the NC State hockey team coach. We talked about
all the lead in final two games of the regular season and overtime victory against UNCW.
The first time you had won in Wilmington since 2012 and then a heartbreaking loss to Elan
in the final game of the regular season. Overall, as you went one in one of those final two
games, going into the tournament, when you analyzed what your team was doing, what did
you think the prospect was for them to be able to be successful in the ACC?
I mean, I thought we had a really good chance in the tournament. Wilmington yet, it was
a little subdued, I think because it was a Saturday afternoon, so a little bit of a subdued
crowd, but the guys still played hard. I mean, that's just the way they do it there. Our
guys were fired up to play and we love playing them. They're always really good games. Just
seeing a lot of things are clicking and that's what you're really looking for, a lot of things
to start clicking. That's what they were doing. As I'm going into the second semester,
I was cautiously optimistic, let's be realistic about it, but then as I started seeing them
play and stuff like that and just some of the things that were going on in practice too.
Practice is all about listening to what they're saying after we're doing certain drills and
how they're interacting with one another and how we interact with them and it just had
a really good feel to it. I was pretty much thinking that we had a pretty good shot.
And heading into Charlottesville, NC State was the number five seed. That's one of the
lowest seeds that you've ever been in your tenure in the ACCHL. You have to play the
Charlotte 49ers, a carbon copy of the first round matchup last year. This is a Niners
team that fights hard against NC State. This is a Niners team that plays a distinct brand
of fast hockey. But NC State came out and it looked like really was prepared to play
that hockey game, scoring, scoring, scoring, taking the lead. When you went into the second
intermission ahead with a pretty hefty margin, were you already thinking we're going to be
able to make it into the second round and we can have a very good match up there? Nope.
Because you can't start taking stuff like that for granted. I mean, you know, and I
tell them that all the time and they probably think I'm nuts sometimes, but even when we're
up I'm telling them to play like they're down because you can't get complacent on things
and that's the one thing I didn't want. I didn't want them getting back into the game,
getting a little bit of momentum and then having to get the guys to just get some confidence
back. So, you know, it was like, look, this is, this is, we knew going into this game,
someone's going home. You know, if you don't want it to be you, this is what you need to
do and this is what we expect out of you. And you know what, you know, a lot of it was just
look around the room. You're not doing it for me. You're doing it for the guys on the
team, right? So if you don't want to let those guys that you're looking at down and
just go hard every shift, you know, and that's what they did and they played a great game.
Compared to the 60-minute effort against the Virginia Tech Kokes back at the beginning
of January, when you look at the effort against Charlotte, which game did you think your team
played better in?
That's a pretty good question. I think probably the Charlotte game because of what was at
stake, you know, nobody wanted to go home. I mean, the Virginia Tech game, they had beat
us early in the year and so we wanted a little, we wanted to get that game back, obviously.
But it's not that there was technically anything at stake. This had something at stake. So there
was that added, you know, emotion of we got to get this done, you know, we got to find
a way to get this done. So I think the way they came out and the way they played the
whole Charlotte game, I think, was probably a better effort.
NC State gets the victory against the Charlotte 49ers by a final count of five to two and
then that was the first game of the tournament. You just sort of had to sit back and see how
the rest of the tournament played out. Little did anybody know the Wake Forest Demon Deacons
would be upset by number seven James Madison. So that threw the bracket all off kilter
and your semifinal matchup is against the team that you lost to in the championship last
season, the George Washington Colonials, a team that was often overlooked because they
were hanging out by in the Capital Division. They had won that division with these, not
a lot of great competition up there in the north as St. Joe's just barely squeaked into
the playoffs this season. But you get out there and you take an early lead against George
Washington. It was by no means on cruise control. But again, this was a state team that channeled
its offense and was able to start off playing good hockey early. A two-nothing lead going
into the intermission. What did you think of your team's first period in that game specifically?
I was happy for it, but this goes back to what I continue to tell them. You can't start
slow and expect to finish strong and that's going to do it. You've got to, again, someone's
not going to play the championship game tomorrow, guys. So who's it going to be? So if you
want it, you've got to go out and show it because they're not going to give it to you,
you know? So they went out and again, when we come out with strong first periods, I generally
feel a lot better about how the rest of the game will go. I don't like if we go out, if
we play a strong period and it's a lopsided score. Two-nothing's not a lopsided score,
obviously, but if you're going and it's like a five, you know, you're up by five, that
generally sets itself up for like a downplayed second period because there's just no sense
of urgency for scoring and guys feel, oh yeah, we got this. And that's how you get set up
for disaster. So two-nothing against a team and when we beat them early in the year and
we know they're a good team and the guys were excited. They wanted, they wanted to win from
last year. You know, the one game early in the season in the tournament was good, but
this was a game that the guys wanted to say, hey, you know, we owe you one.
And what was particularly fun to watch throughout that George Washington game is it wasn't just
the top line scoring. Reed Farrod had, excuse me, had gotten a goal against Charlotte. Ryan
Lensmeyer scores in this one. Ryan Kinney continued his scoring streak as well. How
exciting was it to see this team come together and be potent at all levels instead of just
at the top line, right when you needed them to in the ACC tournament?
And that's how you become successful when you're getting guys that, you know, Sam and
Luis are not scoring all the time. And, you know, you got to remember sometimes that,
you know, they'll put guys on Sam and Luis that, you know, just to shut them down. So
if that's the case, they're going to get chances, you know, they always do. But that's
when you need these other guys to come out and step up and, you know, the depth of the
team, you know, kind of rises to the top of that line. And now, like I said, it's great
to see and Ryan had a tremendous second half of the year. So it's good. And again, the
guys feed off it, you know, because everybody's playing everybody's role and everybody's
involved in the game. And that's always a good thing for me, you know, when I got more
guys out because now, you know, you got three games. So you want to be able to, you know,
get a sufficient amount of rest for everybody before playing that third game. Whereas if
you're constantly using your top two lines, more so than the other lines, the end of the
third game towards a third, you know, ended a period, ended a third period. It's definitely
going to be a struggle for them.
We get the Virginia Cavaliers in the championship game after defeating George Washington, 6-2.
Virginia undefeated in the ACC had only been docked one point off of the tie against Charlotte
earlier in the season. And you went into the first period intermission with a one-nothing
lead against the Cavaliers. Of course, they came storming back with a four goal second
period and won the ice, the cake in the third to take an afternars cup for the first time
in quite some time, first time since 2000 to be exact. Did you think that they were really
a better team in that hockey game? Or that's a situation where in the last 40 minutes, your
team just faded because they had given so much effort in the first two games.
Well clearly they were a better team in that game. I think they pretty much outworked us
in a lot of areas. I thought they had really good defense, that really, really top-notch
defense. And that kind of helped them a lot. They were able to keep the puck in our zone
and that was our mistake of not being able to get it out. And that was something that
we talked about over and over. The ability to get the puck out of the zone, not necessarily
in that game, but in any game. And in that game it just didn't happen. So now your defense
is out there a long time. The guys are out there a long time and obviously they get run
down a little bit quicker. UVA just kept working. They just kept working. And they had a tremendous
season and you know, hats off to them. They had a great tournament.
Virginia Cavaliers is one of the most vaunted forces in all the ACC. But coach, in four
years this is three championship appearances and none of them have amounted to bringing
an admiral's cup back to Raleigh. What does it take at this level of ACCA show hockey to
be able to win the tournament and win that final game on Sunday?
I guess if I knew we'd add a couple more. You know what it is? You go in and it's the
emotion of the guys sometimes. I still kind of think last year was the year that we should
have won. Clearly we had a great year and we had a good group and not that this wasn't
a good group. But we graduated nine seniors and those guys all wanted to win. I thought
last year was really the year for us to have gotten that done. What's it going to take?
I don't know. Maybe getting some bounces. Maybe just getting an overall 60 minutes each
game for three games. If your fault are on any part of that. There's a lot of parity
in this league and there's a lot of good teams. The team that makes the least mistakes is
the team that's probably going to win. I think that was pretty evident against the
UVA team. We made a boatload of mistakes, especially not being able to get the puck
out of the zone. They took advantage of it. We'll get back on the ice next year.
As you look into the future, you lose your senior gold tender, but you do keep your
seniors who will be Sam Vaneshevitz, Will Beiberdorf, Luis Seminez, Chris Wing. All
of those guys are going into their final year. These have been guys who have not only been
great players for you as a coach here, but some of the better players in the history
of NC State Hockey. How critical do you think it is for them to be able to leave with a
championship and how important is it for them to be able to go out there and fight to try
to win an Admirals Cup in their senior season? Because undoubtedly they're all deserving
players. Yeah, they are. I know they want it. I've heard them talk about how much they
want it. Not so much at the tournament, but during the season and on the bus and whatnot.
They want their name on that cup. There's not a doubt. I told them all at the end of
the final practice, I said, there's one name on that cup and this whole group and it's
mine. I don't normally need a lot of people around me, but I really want another name
on it with you guys. Don't leave me hanging out there by myself. Like I said, they want
it. They really want it bad. They're pretty focused and dialed in already. They were on
the bus on the way home. It's a big senior class next year and that's going to be an
interesting year, I think. And it certainly will be a very fun year to watch NC State
Hockey at the Ice Plexon Raleigh. How fitting it is that now four seasons of Over the Boards
with Mike Gazilla with me as your host comes to an end.
Oh wait, we ain't done yet. From your production crew. Oh my goodness. Are we getting this?
Wow. There you go, man. Wow. And almost like Christmas, right? Indeed. Don't bounce it.
I'll do my best. Good thing I didn't get anything made of glass. Wow. Drew Blevins, the voice
and NC State Hockey. I am absolutely speechless, coach. Absolutely speechless. I think I get
an award for keeping you speechless. Oh my goodness. I would be remiss if I did not
thank the crew. Thank you also very much. Anybody who's worked as a producer, camera
person, color commentator, thank you all so much for wonderful memories. And coach, thank
you and the team for some of the best memories of my college career. It's been a good four
years. It most certainly has. We'll miss you. We'll definitely miss you.
For the final time here from Moe's Southwest Grill in Raleigh, this has been Over the Boards
with Mike Gazilla. It's been so much fun to bring it to you for four years and I cannot
wait to see where this program, this show, and this team goes. Good night and God bless
you and thanks so much for joining us.
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