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3/10/07-Hockey
St. Mary's icers win semi-final OT thriller
By Mike Rosenbaum of The West Bloomfield Eccentric
PLYMOUTH--Hockey purists like to claim that the game doesn't have to be high-scoring to be entertaining. Even a 0-0 tie, they assert, can be exciting, filled with brilliant saves, jarring hits and near-miss scoring chances.
Those hockey purists would've enjoyed Friday night's Division 1 semifinal battle between Orchard Lake St. Mary's and East Kentwood. The teams did indeed play fast-paced, edge-of-your-seat hockey with numerous thrills, but no goals, through regulation time, plus an eight-minute overtime period, plus 19 seconds of a second OT before St. Mary's junior Clinton Bourbonais knocked a rebound into the Falcons net to send the Eaglets into the D-1 final.
St. Mary's (15-9-5) faces Marquette (21-3-5) in Saturday's championship contest, at Plymouth's Compuware Arena. The Redmen were 6-2 winners over Grosse Pointe North.
St. Mary's senior Mac Watts began the winning overtime sequence by moving up from his left defense spot and driving to the Falcons' net. Watts' shot was stopped by East Kentwood goalie Ben Belton, but the puck was knocked into the slot, where Bourbonais spun toward the net and slid the puck under Belton.
Watts said he wanted to “take it to the net and just hope that it goes in. Put it to the net and hopefully all these guys go to the net hard, like we have been. That goalie played a great game and finally we just got a lucky bounce. It was a great effort by everyone.”
An exhausted Bourbonais picked up the narrative.
“There was a scramble in front; I was just trying to hit the net with the puck. It was a hard-fought game, both teams. It was an amazing feeling.”
Bourbonais had a right to be tired after his effort. As the scoreless duel progressed, St. Mary's coach Brian Klanow gave his key scorers, Bourbonais and Billy Balent, some extra ice time.
“We were trying to get him and Billy together a little bit for a few shifts to see if we were going to be able to snap something,” Klanow said.
“It was a great game,” summed up East Kentwood coach Ron Baum. “Two teams that wanted to win it, wanted to go on. They worked hard all night and we worked hard all night.”
The game easily could've ended in the first extra session, as both teams enjoyed prime scoring chances. Eaglets goalie Joe Savona – who's only allowed one goal in his past three games – began the period with a sharp kick save following a Jeff Slusser drive. With 1:20 left in the period, Savona stopped Jeff Sanders off a two-on-one breakaway, then got back in position to stop Tyler Copeland on the rebound.
In between, Steve Tallman and Tony Aukskalnis both narrowly missed the net for the Eaglets during a power play.
East Kentwood had beaten St. Mary's twice this season, by identical 5-3 scores, including an empty net goal each time. The defeats didn't shake the Eaglets' confidence, however, because the games were so close.
“When you're losing a game by one goal, basically, in my eyes, as a coach, we're in it,” Klanow said. “We make one adjustment defensively or one adjustment offensively, that can be a two-goal swing or a one-goal swing, and now we're on top.“
Friday's game was played at a high tempo from the opening whistle. Although the contest was evenly-played most of the night, St. Mary's had to dodge several bullets during the first two periods. The Falcons had a pair of two-man advantages, of just more than one minute on each occasion, but didn't generate strong chances, thanks in part to the shot-blocking by Eaglets penalty killers, including Bourbonais and Jon Falvo.
Shane Halaas had St. Mary's best chance of the first 30 minutes, in the final seconds of the second period. He fired a backhander from the low slot that Belton gloved away as the buzzer sounded.
The Falcons then had their best chance in regulation time at the start of the third period, when Ben Dykstra stole the puck while shorthanded and broke in alone on Savona, who held his ground and made a blocker save.
St. Mary's is now 3-2-1 in overtime games this season, although the two earlier losses still sting.
“We've been unlucky in the past in overtime,” said defenseman Brandon Kozlowski, “and I guess we seemed to learn our lesson. We got it done this time…I guess we gave more heart this time.”
Klanow said his team's strategy didn't change in overtime.
“We wanted to make sure that we weren't allowing odd-man rushes, which we did a pretty good job – we gave up that breakaway in the third period, but our big defensive thing was to make sure we weren't giving away odd-man rushes…We were just waiting to capitalize on a mistake. And we got one.”
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