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Top cheese brings Gilmour early win
(by Tony Lange - January 11, 2012)
Top cheese brings Gilmour early win
By TONY LANGE
An early win propelled by a pair of sophomores helped Gilmour Academy win its own Brother James Memorial Hockey Tournament this past weekend.
Mason Schmitt's first-period goal and Ryan Hall's third-period score gave the Lancers a 2-1 victory against Walsh Jesuit during the first game of the tournament last Friday.
The Lancers went on to beat Pine Richland, 5-1, and tie Culver Academy, 2-2, on Saturday before advancing to the championship game on Sunday in the eight-team tournament.
In the championship game, the Lancers beat Olentangy Liberty, 3-2, in overtime with two more goals from Schmitt and one from junior Alex Aleva to improve to a 16-7-1 record for the season. Senior goaltender Oliver Flesher had 35 saves during that game.
Against Walsh Jesuit, Schmitt scored his first goal of the tournament at the 11:50 mark in the first period to give the Lancers an early 1-0 lead.
It was his first breakaway of the season, he said. "It was a really big goal. Joe Lencewicz had a nice through-the-center-ice pass to me," Schmitt said of his senior teammate who assisted his goal. "And I really didn't know what I was going to do on the breakaway. It was my first one this year. But I shot it, it hit off the goalie, and it bounced right in, so it was a great goal."
Lencewicz's assist was a long pass that travelled from one end of the rink to the other, whipping past almost every player on the ice.
"I got the puck from behind our own net, and then I was looking toward my left, and then I looked far up the ice, and there Schmitt was breaking past all the guys," Lencewicz said. "I just threw some fat sauce all the way, and it just landed right on his stick, and I thought, that's how you do it."
In the second period, the Lancers outshot Walsh, 18-3, with 10 shots on goal, but the Warriors scored and tied the game, 1-1, heading into the final 15-minute period.
Senior leader John Tobbe, who has lettered on the varsity team since his freshman year, said the Lancers just had to remain patient.
"I think we came into the game looking like we were going to kill the team. We thought we were going to be a lot better than them and took them a little lightly. We skated well, but we kind of just fumbled the puck a lot," he said. "We just had to stay strong defensively. We know that our strong point is playing good defense, and the goals will come. Just keep shooting them on the goalie, and eventually something will come of it. We just couldn't get too frustrated."
The Lancers had 16 shots on goal, compared to Walsh's four during the first two periods. But it was the Warriors who came out shooting in the third with nine of their 10 shots on goal.
The game, however, remained tied at 1-1, and Tobbe got called for a penalty with about four minutes left to play. Therefore, the Lancers had to skate a man down for the next two minutes.
About a minute into the Lancers' penalty kill, Hall intercepted a Warrior pass, skated down the ice from his own blue line and sniped a shot into the upper corner of the net to give Gilmour a 2-1 advantage.
"We were out there for a while, and I knew I had a little bit of time, so my coaches said, skate a little bit and dump it in," Hall said. "So I came down and put it between my guys' legs, went around him, and then I knew I had a two-on-one. And I saw my guy, Benny Clark, tied up on the far side, so I decided to just rip it, and it went top cheese. Goal!"
The Lancers will travel to Pittsburgh for a tournament this weekend before returning for their next home game at 6:40 p.m. Jan. 20 against Brighton.
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