Houghton's Jack Sayen (right) celebrates the first of his four goals during the Division 3 championship game which the Gremlins won 5-2 Saturday at USA Hockey Arena in Plymouth. (A.M. Arrick/For the Gazette)

HOUGHTON — Even 24 hours later, Houghton Gremlins senior forward Jack Sayen was still trying to process what had happened the day before. The alternate captain had just scored an MSHAA record-tying four goals as he helped lift the Gremlins to their first state championship since 1982.

He was still confused by the whole experience when he got off the bus Sunday at the Houghton High School.

“I still don’t really understand what happened,” he said. “I mean, I guess I had the game of my career in the perfect moment. That’s really what’s going through my head.

“But, I’m just happy our team won.”

His coach, Micah Stipech didn’t even realize his first-line center had even scored four goals in the chaos after the game.

“Oh, man, I love him so much,” said Stipech. “I didn’t even realize he scored four until we got off the ice. He could have had a couple others that he missed and stuck with it.”

Stipech had been around Sayen for the entirety of his high school career, and had spent countless hours preparing him for the biggest game of his career in the biggest moment.

“Jack has been one of the most coachable kids,” Stipech said. “I’ve pushed him for four years on things like going to the net, and being strong on a stick. He did it (Saturday).

“He’s the ultimate team guy. He leads by exam, and it couldn’t happen to a better kid.”

Sayen shared ice time all season alongside classmates Noah Maillette and Connor Arko. All three were members of the Gremlins’ leadership group, with Arko as the captain and Sayen and Maillette as alternate captains. They led the team in scoring throughout the season.

“That line, those three, they’re so humble and unassuming,” said Stipech. “They don’t care who gets the credit or the goals. Like Jack said, he just happened to be in the right spot at the right time. It was his turn.”

Stipech loved that while his two linemates were named to the All-State First Team, it was Sayen who had the largest impact in the most critical moment.

“I’m so happy, because he gets overlooked often,” Stipech said. “Other guys get accolades and it doesn’t faze him. He’s happy for his friends. He’s happy for his teammates, and he just wants to win. When you have a group of guys that all are like that, which this group was, you can do great things.”

It could have been an even bigger game for Sayen, if not for a crossbar in the opening seconds of the third period. Just 29 seconds in, he carried a puck through the slot, deked to his backhand and lifted a shot that beat Orchard Lake-St. Mary’s goaltender Thomas Reeber, but not that pesky bar that crosses the top of the net.

“The first thing that went through my head was I saw I had an open net, and I just got too antsy, and I completely whiffed on it,” Sayen said with a smile. “But, then after my teammates thought I scored, that’s where I was like, ‘Wow.’ I really felt like I let them down a little bit, so I had to go out there my next shift and make something happen.”

Stipech addressed Sayen on the bench as soon as he reached the bench.

“We always talk about don’t miss out on the next moment because you’re thinking about the last one,” said Stipech. “That’s what I said, I just was like, ‘Next play, next chance you get, you’re burying it.'”

Sayen did, just 43 seconds after the Eaglets took a 2-1 lead on the power play to open the scoring in the third period.

“When they went up 2-1, that was the first time we’ve been down in playoffs the whole time,” Sayen said. “So, we really needed a quick response, or else who knows what would have happened. We might have imploded or whatever.

“But, we have great leadership on this team. Nobody hung their heads. I remember right when I saw them score, I looked at coach, and I just went on the ice. Then I went out there, and Connor gave me a nice pass, and I buried it.”

Stipech referred to that play as exactly what the Gremlins had learned to do all season long.

“That was a microcosm of what this team has done all year,” he said. “We went down by one. Before the game, we talked about that. Orchard Lake, one of the things they do is when they smell blood in the water, they get a bunch of them. Before the game, we said, the next shift after has to be the best shift of the game. That’s what they went out there and did. They went out there, buried one, and got the momentum back.

All season long, they haven’t flinched. When they’ve gotten knocked down, they’ve gotten that right back up and got in the fight.”

Sayen said that he felt the loss to Escanaba, on Saturday, Dec. 13, which was the Gremlins’ third straight loss, was a key moment in learning how to do what the team figured out how to do the rest of the season whenever they got knocked down.

“Right after the Escanaba game, everybody was frustrated, because we were at a losing record,” he said. “We were kind of at an all time low, and we had to play Hartland the next week, which was arguably the best team in the state at the time. We knew we had to regroup quickly, and we knew that if we could even play them hard, let alone win, that would be huge for us, because then we could prove ourselves that we can play with top teams.

“We put together a great game and we beat them. So that was just a feeling that we could just build off of that and kept going.”

They put those lessons to work the rest of the season, and Sayen was right in the middle of it all.

Houghton’s Jack Sayen works the puck across the ice during a 4-0 victory over Bay Reps in the MHSAA Division 3 semifinals Friday at USA Hockey Arena in Plymouth. (A.M. Arrick/For the Gazette)