One can only imagine the pre-game talk among St. Mary's recent opponents. It's probably similar to what Sylvester Stallone said in the first Rocky film about fighting Apollo Creed: we can't win; we can only hope to go the distance.

On Friday, Big Rapids went the distance, but Eaglets did the celebrating after a 9-2 victory. St. Mary's advanced to Saturday's Division 3 final against Flint Powers Catholic (results were not available at press time).

"We're playing well right now," said St. Mary's coach Brian Klanow. "Our speed's really showing. We've been taking advantage of some mistakes."

St. Mary's 11-0 regional final victory over Harper Woods Notre Dame on March 5 was stopped after two periods by the mercy rule. Likewise, the Eaglets' 10-0 triumph over Ortonville-Brandon in the state quarterfinal also ended early, just 3:27 into the third period.

Klanow said he was "surprised" by the margin of victory over Big Rapids. "But when I look at the way we played," he added, "we're not giving them an inch. We're taking everything away from them. We're a tough team right now."

St. Mary's improved to 19-6-3 Friday with its 14th consecutive victory. The Cardinals finished 19-10. The game was played at Plymouth's Compuware Arena

The Eaglets took charge quickly, with four first-period goals. Casey Rose tipped in Maciej Sulka's shot at 2:46, just after a Big Rapids penalty expired, to open the scoring. Zack Doyen scored the first of his four goals, off a pass from Krystian Dziubinski, then Jeff Petry drilled home a slap shot from the right wing boards at 9:46.

With St. Mary's up 3-0 after putting just five shots on net, Cardinals coach Brian Guiney called a timeout to try to settle his troops down. But six minutes later Doyen slipped a power play shot through small opening on the short side to end the first-period scoring.

Doyen scored another power play goal, off a Patrick Nagorsen pass, to help St. Mary's take a 7-0 lead into the third. Alex Prough and Dziubinski also scored for the Eaglets in the second. But Eric Roman and Jeff Mydlowski both took penalties in the final 25 seconds of the period, setting the stage for St. Mary's first goal-against since March 3.

Cody Keefer knocked a rebound past Shane Trexler during the Cardinals' two-man advantage, 40 seconds into the third period, ending Trexler's shutout string of almost 105 minutes. Doyen responded with a shorthanded goal and Rose scored on the power play before Jacob Carfney ended the scoring for Big Rapids.

Rose finished with two goals plus one assist. Prough and Dziubinski each had a goal and two assists, while Sulka and Nagorsen had three assists apiece. St. Mary's outshot the Cardinals 34-11.

St. Mary's had never reached a semifinal in its 11-year hockey history, so, despite the Eaglets' on-ice dominance, they have experienced some off-ice butterflies.

Nagorsen, a senior, said he was "very nervous" prior to the quarterfinal and semifinal games, "because anything can happen." However, "as soon as we start scoring, it just rolls, and we feel like we're unstoppable."

Prough said he "can't even describe" the feeling of reaching the state final.

"This is (school) history in the making right here. It's just been one historical thing after another this year. This has been the year that we've ended all our schneids, so to speak, and we hope we can just finish it off, not only for our team, but for our school as well."