Game Recap

Ice Prowlers away versus the Olentangy Braves
@ the Chiller North
Sunday, February 13th, 2005

Prowlers finish in 1st place in GCHSCHL

From the start of the 2004-2005 season, the Prowlers were the team with the target on their backs. After finishing first in the GCHSCHL last season with a 20-3-1 record, and going on to win their second consecutive Blue Jackets Cup, this years team knew that teams were going to be gunning for them. After loosing key players from last year's roster, and a small margin of error for improvement, this years team was up for the challenge.

With that challenge at hand, the Prowlers went on to not only again finish first in the league for a second consecutive season, but bettered last season's record by one game finishing 21-3-0. On top of that, the Prowler defense and goaltending was spectacular, posting a team low 1.63 goals against average in the GCHSCHL.

The final game of the season brought a familiar foe, their 2004 Blue Jacket Cup challenger, the Olentangy Braves. The two teams faced each other twice in the playoffs last season with the Prowlers coming out on top 2-1 in OT (2/20/2004) and 7-6 in the Finals (2/22/2004). This season, the Prowlers had shut the Braves out twice (6-0 on 11/12/2004 and 3-0 on 01/23/2005) and skated to a 4-2 win (02/04/2005) just nine days prior to this meeting.

This game started out as a tight checking game with the Prowlers getting on the board first when senior alternate captain Anthony Kantor scored at 9:54 (assisted by juniors Taylor Walcutt and Ben French) for the first period's only goal as the teams kept things close at 1-0.

In the second period, the scoring opened up a bit when the Prowlers got goals from junior Nick Miller (assisted by freshman Zach Wiard and sophomore Max Matsanoff) and Walcutt (assisted by Kantor and sophomore Cody Berkebile) to give the team a 3-0 lead. Freshman goaltender Miles McGrew was able to keep the Braves off the board and extend his shutout streak to 139 minutes in his past three games before giving up a goal with 4:08 remaining in the period. Kantor came back just over a minute later and added another goal (assisted by Berkebile) to give the Prowlers a 4-1 lead going into the third period and to cap his league leading point total off at 50 points.

Walcutt added a short handed goal (unassisted) in the third period to cap off his league leading goals at 26 on the season and to put it away for the Prowlers. The team held on to the 5-1 lead despite a flurry from the Braves, to hang on to the win and clinch first place in the GCHSCHL.

With first place, the Prowlers clinch a bye in the first round of the Blue Jackets Cup GCHSCHL Championship Tournament and will face the winner of the Olentangy Braves (#4) vs. Northeast Storm (#5) on Friday at 8:00 PM at the Chiller in Dublin. Good luck to this years Prowlers as they battle for their third consecutive Blue Jackets Cup and 1st ever Buckeye Cup State Championship.