Game Recap

Ice Prowlers home versus the Westerville Warcats
Blue Jackets Cup GCHSCHL Championship Tournament
@ the Chiller North
Friday, February 17th, 2006

PROWLERS DROP TOUGH ONE TO DEFENDING CUP CHAMPS

For the last two seasons the Prowlers entered the Blue Jackets Cup GCHSCHL Championship Tournament as the defending Cup Champs. Winners of the Cup in 2003 and 2004, last year they made it to the Cup Finals for the third straight year before relinquishing the title to the Westerville Warcats in triple overtime. This year, the two teams would go at it again as they both advanced to the second round of the winners bracket. This time, the Prowlers have to go through the defending Cup Champs to reclaim the prize.

The Warcats have a slight advantage (2-1-1) in the season series after a 5-5 tie (11/06/2005) to start the series, then a 2-1 Warcat win (11/18/2005) before the Prowlers evened up the series with a 5-2 win just three weekends ago (1/29/2006). With the series tied 1-1-1, the Warcats rounded it out with a tightly played 5-3 win, which included an empty net goal in the final seconds, in the final game of the regular season (2/12/2006). With the one tie and the two Warcat victories all tight games, this one was expected to be too.

The game started out with special teams playing a key role. The Prowlers found themselves short handed when freshman Adam McGrath was called for a high stick just minutes into the game. The Warcat's Aaron Archibald connected on the resulting power play, and the Prowlers found themselves down by a goal early. Just a minute later though, the Prowlers went on the man advantage and McGrath redeemed himself, connecting for a power play goal (assisted by senior alternate captain Taylor Walcutt) to even the score at 1-1. That would be all for the penalties in the period, but there was still some more scoring as Sean Hundley beat junior goaltender Justin Lohrman halfway through the period to give the Warcats their second lead of the game. The Prowlers would counter with 1:08 remaining in the period when junior defenseman Cody Berkebile completed a nice give and go play with junior Nick Hess to knott the score back at 2-2 after the first.

The second period saw a parade of Warcats to the penalty box, but the Prowlers could not capitalize on the power play. The Warcats took the lead back in the game at 10:54 when Hundley got his second of the game, but the Prowlers bounced right back 48 seconds later when Berkebile returned the favor (assisted by McGrath) to tie it up again, this time 3-3. The Warcats then got the bounce of the game when a shot from Joseph Perruzzi bounced off of Lohrman's stick on the save and up over the goaltender's head and into the net with 4:28 remaining in the period to put the score at 4-3 in Westerville's favor.

As the second period wound down, Walcutt received a roughing call that would start the Warcats on the power play in the third. Justin Sachs converted on the man advantage to give his team the first two goal lead of the game with 14:36 remaining in regulation. The third period saw both teams stopped on the power play, but the Prowlers continued to battle back down by two. Just moments after a great glove save by Lohrman to keep his team in the game, sophomore Luke Wilkins drove hard to the Westerville net and fed the puck to freshman Brad Noskowiak who buried it past Bill Sorokas to bring the game back within one with 2:25 remaining. Sachs then quickly scored his second of the game though, just 40 seconds later, to bump the Warcat lead back to two with 1:45 left on the clock.

The Prowlers had no quit though. Sophomore Austin Zurbriggen was able to convert a play started by Berkebile to give his team a chance to tie with just 1:12 remaining. After a quick timeout, the Prowlers pulled Lohrman for the extra attacker and poured it on the Warcats, with just a goalpost to show for it. Westerville was able to hold off the Prowler attack and hang on for the victory.

As a result, the Warcats will advance to play the regular season GCHSCHL Champion Athens Bobcats in the winner's bracket final, while the Prowlers will have to battle their way back through the tournament's loser's bracket like they did last season for a shot at regaining the Blue Jackets Cup. That quest begins tomorrow morning (2/18/2006) when the Prowlers host the Hilliard/Southwest Wildcats at 10:00 AM at the Dispatch Ice Haus. The two teams split the season series 2-2, but have not seen each other since before the halfway point of the season. They had faced off three times in the league's first three weeks with the Wildcats handing the Prowlers their first loss of the season 4-2 (11/04/2005) before the Prowlers rattled off a pair of victories 6-3 (11/13/2005) and 5-0 (11/20/2005). The Wildcats eventually tied up the series with a 4-3 victory (12/09/2005) months ago on their way to being the surprise team of the league going from 4-17-3 a year ago to 13-7-4 this year. The Wildcats finished just one point behind the Prowlers in the regular season, but finished 4th in the standings. They lost their series opening game 4-2 to the 5th seed Olentangy Braves on Thursday and were off Friday evening. The Prowlers look to keep their playoff hopes alive having to win every game through the rest of the tournament.