Game Recap

Ice Prowlers away versus the Westerville Warcats
@ the Chiller at Easton
Friday, January 21st, 2005

Prowlers take sole possession of 1st place in the GCHSCHL

Senior defenseman Matt Schuh (Pickerington Central) had a goal and an assist and anchored the Prowler defense as they allowed only 4 shots in the first period.

Coming into this Friday's game, everyone knew what was on the line. The Prowlers and Warcats and had been trading first place back and forth all season. The teams were even with 24 points each coming into the game with Westerville leading the season series two games to one (4-2 Westerville on 11/07/2004, 4-3 Prowlers on 12/03/2004 and a lopsided 8-3 Westerville victory on 12/12/2004). To add to the importance of the game, just minutes before the puck dropped, The Athens Bobcats (12-3-1, 25 points) had just defeated the Northeast Storm (4-11-1, 9 points) to leapfrog both teams and take a brief hold of first place and muddy up what had been a two team race for first place in the GCHSCHL.

With that added importance and an already heated rivalry between these two teams, everyone was ready for another good one. Freshman goaltender Miles McGrew was back in the Prowler net coming off a 6-0 shutout over Hilliard/Southwest in his last contest (1/9/2005). Senior goaltender Morgan Rogers was back in the net for the Warcats.

Westerville appeared to have the jump early when Justin Sachs put his team on the board with a goal just 44 seconds into the game, but the Prowler defense tightened up the rest of the way allowing only 3 more shots on goal in the period. The defense also provided a little jumpstart to the offense when senior defenseman Matt Schuh scored on a blast from the point to get the Prowlers on the board and even things up at 8:45 (assisted by sophomore Nick Hess and sophomore Brian Rossi). Just seconds later, the Prowlers went on their first power play of the night and made it count when Hess scored off of Schuh's rebound with just 3 seconds remaining on the man advantage. Then, with the period winding down, the Prowlers found themselves on a 5-on-3 power play in which they scored a pair of power play goals by senior captain Eric Willard (assisted by sophomore Cody Berkebile and senior alternate captain Anthony Kantor) and Anthony Kantor (unassisted) to give the Prowlers a 4-1 lead and chasing Rogers from the Warcats net in favor of Bill Sorokas.

The second period saw more conservative play on the part of the Prowlers as they controlled the tempo of the game and the score. Then, the third period started off with the Warcats on the power play and a quick goal by Reston Ansley which sparked new life into the game with 13:36 remaining. The teams battled tooth and nail until the final minutes when junior Taylor Walcutt took a check along the boards but was able to force the puck to Willard who scored on the empty net (unassisted) to put the game away with 1:07 remaining.

With the win, the Prowlers leapfrogged both Westerville and Athens into first place in the GCHSCHL and tie the season series with Westerville at two games apiece. Now, the Prowlers have one game remaining against Athens on 2/06/2005 to try and win that series, which is currently 2-1 in the Prowler's favor.

Before that though, they face the Olentangy Braves this Sunday (1/23/2005) at 5:30 PM in a rare home game at the Chiller in Dublin. This is only the second meeting of the year for these two teams who will meet three times in the Prowler's last eight games. The Prowlers won the first match 6-0 over two months ago on 11/12/2004.