Eaglets blank Clarkston

By DAVE CAMERON
Special to The Oakland Press

ORCHARD LAKE — Orchard Lake St. Mary's has three state hockey championships in the last four seasons (2005, 2007 and last year). And senior forward Shane Halaas, along with the rest of the Eaglets, aim to make it another championship this year.

Halaas scored three goals by the end of the second-period buzzer late Wednesday night as St. Mary's downed Clarkston, 5-0, in a Division 1 boys hockey regional game at the St. Mary's Hockey Arena.

OLSM (20-5-1) is one of a handful of teams in Division 1 that has a legitimate shot at the state title. Marquette, Novi Detroit Catholic Central, Birmingham Unified and Howell are some of the other teams that have a fighting chance to play for the crown on March 14 at Plymouth's Compuware Arena.

Birmingham beat Troy Athens, 4-1, Wednesday and will face the Eaglets at 7:30 p.m. Saturday night at the Troy Sports Arena for the regional championship.

Senior goalie Max Oslund stopped all 10 shots that Clarkston had on him.

“He had only 10 shots, but he made a save on that breakaway and (those) 2-on-1s,” St. Mary's head coach Brian Klanow said. “If he doesn't make those saves, it's a whole new game. He came up big when we needed him.”

Clarkston was coming off a crisp 4-2 victory over West Bloomfield Monday night, and didn't play that poorly against OLSM. But a few bad bounces of the puck came back to hurt the Wolves (10-15-1). Clarkston finished in fourth place in its league — OAA Division 1 — this winter, behind North Farmington, South Lyon, and league champion Rochester.

Halaas opened the scoring at 11:38 of the first period, with assists to senior defenseman Matt Uhrin and senior defenseman Dane Muller.

OLSM made it 2-0 on a goal from senior winger Jonathan Kello with 8:34 left in the second period. Junior forward Zak Thompson scored at 10:25 of the second for a 3-0 St. Mary's lead. Halaas finished off the scoring with his two goals late in the period, the final one coming with 57 seconds to play in the period for a hat trick. There wasn't any scoring in the third period.

Clarkston head coach Bryan Krygier said his team was competitive for most of the first two periods.

“I thought we played pretty well,” Krygier said. “It was 1-0 going into the second period and then we kind of let a couple of bad goals in and they kept going in. You can't win a game if you do that. They (St. Mary's) moved the puck and they capitalized on their opportunities.”

Klanow felt his team showed superior depth.

“We wore them down,” Klanow said.

Klanow does not want his team to dwell on the next opponent.

“For us, it's not about who we play, but how we play,” Klanow added. “If we do that, we'll compete.”

Klanow said the fact OLSM has its own rink helps with a home-ice advantage that few high school hockey teams have. St. Mary's used to play at the Detroit Skating Club in Bloomfield Hills before getting its own ice rink on campus.

“Certainly it's great for our kids,” Klanow said.

St. Mary's senior left wing Andrew Clooan, who had an assist, said his team took care of the little things to win.

“It was just an awesome game as a team and we had a lot of fun,” Clooan said. “We had a lot of talking on the bench. Max (Oslund) played unbelievable in goal. We should make a good run. We're getting ready for Saturday.”

OLSM outshot Clarkston, 34-10, for the game and had a 26-6 edge in shots after two periods.

A victory against Birmingham would advance St. Mary's to the Division 1 state quarterfinals at St. Clair Shores Civic Arena on Wednesday.

Prep Hockey

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