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3/14/07-Hockey
St. Mary's beats CC in regional final
Hockey Weekly
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Orchard Lake St. Mary's learned a new trick in the Michigan High School Athletic Association Regional Final at the St. Mary's Athletic Complex on March 3: How to beat their archrival Detroit Catholic Central on home ice.
The Eaglets rode a couple of first period power-play goals and the goaltending of Joe Savona for a 2-0 win to end the Shamrocks' perfect record at the SMAC and advance to the Division 1 quarterfinals against Northville.
The win also gave St. Mary's a 5-4-1 record against the Shamrocks in the four years the two school's hockey teams have been playing each other. CC was 4-0 at St. Mary's rink.
“We joked about the record a couple days before the game, but the day of the game we never mentioned it,” said St. Mary's coach Brian Klanow. “We didn't consider it a jinx ... just more of a coincidence. We certainly wanted to break the trend, though, and we found a good time to do it.”
Besides the 21 saves Savona made for the shutout, at least a half dozen of the spectacular variety, St. Mary's also outdid the No. 3-ranked team in the state in special teams play by killing off six penalties.
“For the most part, we stayed out of the penalty box,” Klanow said. “We had a few, but our penalty kill and goaltending was extremely strong. CC is a great team and that was a big win for us.”
The Shamrocks (18-7-2) were eliminated last year in the same Regional final by the Eaglets at the Detroit Skating Club, 3-1. St. Mary's (13-9-5) then lost the quarterfinal to Brighton in double overtime, 2-1, and the Bulldogs went on to win the state championship.
This time Brighton was eliminated on the same night as Catholic Central by Northville, 6-1, setting up their March 7, game with OLSM.
The Shamrocks had the early advantage when Kasper Bryniczka went off for hooking just 1:07 after the opening face off.
CC put on serious pressure during the power play, especially on a breakaway for senior Chad Wilhelm, but Savona made his first huge save of the game on the shot.
“That save really propelled our team,” said Klanow. “(CC) did fly the zone a lot and every time they connected, Joe stopped them.”
At 4:21 of the first period, CC's Mike Bourgon was whistled off for interference and at 5:39, Greg Merrill was nabbed for a boarding call giving St. Mary's a five-on-three advantage. Forty seconds later, Steve Tallman's pass across the front of the goal hit CC defenseman Jeff Scherrer's skate and deflected the puck past goalie Andrew Duff. Brandon Kozlowski got an assist on the goal, which came with two seconds left in Bourgon's penalty, leaving St. Mary's with a five-on-four power play.
Shane Halaas tipped in Clinton Bourbonais' shot from the point 30 seconds later for a 2-0 lead with Billy Balent getting the second assist.
St. Mary's then went into a defensive shell and eventually outshot the Shamrocks 24-21 for the game.
“They had a good plan when they got a two goal lead,” Catholic Central coach Todd Johnson said. “After that they were able to trap us down. They did a great job with that. It was the perfect recipe for them and what we did not want to happen. It's frustrating. They played good and deserved to win.”
Two years ago, St. Mary's got another monkey off its back defeating Cranbrook for the first time in the regular season and then in overtime in the Division 3 district playoff before going on to win the school's first hockey State Championship in 2005. Last year the Eaglets moved up to Division 1 and the Regional win over CC was the school's first ever D1 title in any sport in the school's 122 year history.
Now with another D1 title, they hope it leads to their first D1 State Championship.
“We showed we wanted the Regional more than the other team and we'll have to keep playing that way to win it all,” said Klanow.
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