A little over a month removed from their championship run in the Loyola Thanksgiving Tournament, Glenbrook North has hit another milestone. For the second time in three years, the Spartans were crowned champions of the 21st Annual Chicago Blackhawks Charities Holiday Hockey Classic Monday in Bensenville. 

Glenbrook North has appeared in the finals the last three years and defeated New Trier Blue 2-1 Monday afternoon for the title. The Spartans advanced by being the first seed in the Mikita Bracket with New Trier Blue the second. 

The Spartans were undefeated in the tournament, beating New Trier Blue 6-3 Friday, Notre Dame 3-1 and Waubonsie 8-0 Saturday. Sunday in the quarterfinals they defeated Lake Forest 10-0 and Naperville Central in the semifinals 1-0 Monday morning.

Alex Merritt tallied six goals in the quarterfinals and with 25 seconds left in the semifinal knocked in the game-winner. He was happy with the end result but was a little disappointed in how the Spartans got in that situation. 

"We just could not finish," Merritt said. "I don't think we played that well. We need to step it up. We need to finish in the championship later, that's what we're worried about."

New Trier Blue didn't make it easy for Glenbrook North. Tensions rose as the game remained scoreless until Eric Doar found the back of the net with 20:15 left to play. 

"We had to work on defense first," Doar said. "We had to make sure that they  made a mistake before we did. Like our first goal, they made a mistake we capitalized on it first and that was our game plan."

With 15:53 left in the game, Jared Epstein knocked one in for security to give the Spartans a 2-0 lead. New Trier Blue managed a shot but the Spartans hung on to that one-goal lead for the 2-1 win. 

"It was board play," Epstein said about the first half of the championship. "We weren't winning our matchups. Second half we came back ready to play, won our battles, we stayed in front of the net and I think we were ultimately more hungry than them. We came to play and look at the outcome."

Glenbrook North has now won two major championships this year and pushed their overall record to 45-9-2. 

"It's great winning both tournaments," said goaltender Garrett Cohen. "We wanted to get it done and we got it done."

Where does it go from here for the Spartans?

"Obviously we want to win the state championship, that's our goal," said Epstein. "We haven't set anything lower than that."