Brother Rice outlasts St. Mary's in battle of state powers

By DANIEL TALLANT
Special to The Oakland Press

OAK PARK – Although it was only a regular season game between Birmingham Brother Rice and Orchard Lake St. Mary's, the feeling in the air was that playoff hockey came early this year.

The high-octane Brother Rice team played strong defensively and had to come from behind to take down St. Mary's, 6-4, on Tuesday evening.

“I would've never guessed a shootout for tonight's game,” Brother Rice head coach Lou Schmidt said. “Despite the fact that it was a 6-4 game, I thought that both goalies played really well. They both made some huge saves. It was a really wide open game. There were a lot of long passes, breakaways, and odd-man situations. I think we definitely gave the fans a good game to watch.”

After watching the Eaglets tie the game at four goals apiece early in the third period, Warriors' sophomore Thomas Ebbing was fed the puck from the corner into the slot where he easily beat the goalie to retake the lead just over a minute later.

Less than four minutes later, Ebbing threw the puck in front of the net from the sideboards, and senior Jake Jaskolski redirected the pass to score and give the Warriors a two-goal lead that St. Mary's couldn't overcome.

“We coughed the puck up to them way too much tonight,” St. Mary's head coach Brian Klanow said. “I'm just really disappointed with the defensive turnovers. We kept fighting, and it definitely was not a lopsided game by any means.”

The contest opened up with Brother Rice grabbing a 1-0 lead when junior Henry Nelson cut into the slot and scored glove side. The lead did not last long, however, because after forcing a turnover in the neutral zone, Eaglets' freshman Cody Milan snuck in behind the defensemen and tied the game with a short-handed goal.

“I thought that we had chances to win this game,” Klanow said. “If you want to win a game like this, you cannot turn the puck over in your own zone like we did.”

With less than a minute to go in the first period, senior Matt Sweet ripped a shot off the mask of Brother Rice's goalie forcing the puck to pop up in the air and drop down in front of junior Luke Rodgers, who poked in the loose puck and gave St. Mary's a 2-1 lead heading into the first intermission.

After a slow start to the second period, junior Eric Dibble wheeled around the top of the circle into the slot and beat the keeper high, glove side to knot the game at two.

St. Mary's answered that goal and silenced the Brother Rice student section just 23 seconds later. However, the Warriors' wild student section erupted again when Jaskolski banged in a loose puck to retie the game, this time just 24 seconds later.

Klanow was pleased with how his team responded to that crazy 47 seconds of hockey.

“I just kept telling them to get back to our game plan,” Klanow said. “We had to stop running around the rink and just settle down. Fortunately, we got settled down and were able to tie the game back up in the third.”

Just as St. Mary's (11-5) scored in the last minute of the first period, Brother Rice was able to grab a one-goal lead headed into the second intermission when a hard shot from Ebbing dribbled through the goalie and Dibble was able to tap the puck in.

The forward line of Ebbing, Jaskolski and Mackenzie MacEachern was really key for the Warriors. The three linemates combined for 12 points.

“They really showed up tonight,” Schmidt said. “We were really happy with their effort. They've been scoring a lot for us lately.”

Brother Rice (13-2-1) is looking forward to a week off, but the Warriors return from their break with some big games against Trenton and Warren De La Salle.

“This type of game really helps prepare us for the playoffs,” Schmidt said. “They're really such a good team, and the game tonight was really fast-paced. It felt like a playoff game tonight with all of the fans and the high intensity level. It was some good hockey.”

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