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12/13/06-Hockey
St. Mary's ties, loses at Culver Academy
Hockey Weekly
Orchard Lake St. Mary's Prep made its third annual trip to the Culver Military Academy in Indiana , Dec. 2-3 and
came away with a tie and a loss against the No. 2 rated team in the country.
All in all not a bad weekend for the Eaglets, who erased a three-goal deficit in the last 5:41 of play for a 6-6
tie in the first game. The last goal came with 10 seconds left by Tim Hooker, who also scored the fifth goal.
In the second game, St. Mary's took a 2-0 lead in the first, only to see Culver tie it after two periods and
then bury several Eaglets mistakes for a 6-2 victory.
“Holy cow are they a good team,” said St. Mary's head coach Brian Klanow. “They are big, fast. There's not a weak
link and it's easily the best Culver team we've seen in three years.
“They are ranked second nationally in Midget Major and High School rankings, right behind Shattuck (MN) St. Mary's.”
While a win may be hard to come by playing Culver, a five-year prep school with a roster of players from at least
12 states and three countries (Ukraine and Canada also), the Eaglets are now 0-4-2 in their three trips there.
“I am a firm believer it's such a good experience for our kids to go down there and see how a program like this
competes at the highest level,” said Klanow. “In the first game we were outshot 57-23, but a lot of their shots
were from outside. We did a good job of not letting them penetrate the middle.
“During our comeback in the first game, we played smart hockey. We used our strengths and were able to pick off
a couple of passes and made them pay for their mistakes.”
Culver coach Al Clark commented on his team's website of the first game: “kissing your sister would feel pretty
good compared to the feeling after this tie. For the second game in a row, we had a third period lead (6-3 with
six minutes left) in a game we were dominating and failed to win. We made enough mistakes in the final minutes
(turnovers, poor coverage, icing, soft goals) to cause concern about our ability to stay focused and finish off
opponents. Improvement is definitely needed in this area as we will hopefully have a lot of leads to protect.”
Clark 's Eagles (9-2-1) finished much better in the game Sunday.
“We actually played better Sunday and we were up 2-0 after one period,” said Klanow. “But they did tie it in the
second and got and early third period goal. Then we made a couple of bad mistakes and they put it away.”
The shot differential was even greater in favor of Culver in game two, 63-14, but OLSM goalie Joe Savona survived
the two-day barrage, giving up 12 goals on 120 shots.
“Their coach had nothing but good things to say about our kids and program,” said Klanow. “This kind of competition
gets us ready for future opponents.”
And the next game for the 2-2-1 Eaglets isn't much easier, a rematch with Novi Detroit Catholic Central at Compuware
Dec. 9. The Shamrocks won the first game, 3-2 at St. Mary's on Nov. 18.
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