Shattuck-St. Mary’s outscored its opponents 24-9 in posting a perfect 4-0 mark in pool play, then rallied to top Pittsburgh Penguins Elite (PA) 2-1 in overtime in the semifinals Saturday.

Against Little Caesars, the Sabers jumped out to a 3-0 lead after one period and then maintained control the rest of the way.

Jake Gustafson put Shattuck-St. Mary’s in front with 12:46 left in the opening period with the first of his two goals.

Cooper Soller made it 2-0 three minutes later, taking Colin Grubb’s pass from the right side for an open look just outside the left post.

Shattuck-St. Mary’s goalie Michael Iliff turned away a penalty shot with 7:15 left in the period. Three minutes later, Odin Vauhkonen scored from the slot to extend the lead to 3-0.

“I’m confident in my ability,” said Iliff, who stopped 99 of the 105 shots against him in his four games in the net. “I knew I had him. It’s just part of the game and I just stayed locked in.”

Despite the pressure of the situation, or maybe because of it, Gustafson said he had confidence in Iliff.

“Everyone on the bench knew Mike was going to stop that,” Gustafson said. “He’s the greatest goalie I’ve ever seen.”

Gustafson notched his second goal to make it 4-0 just under four minutes into the second period.

“It feels great,” Gustafson said. “My teammates got it to me. [John] Riffey got me the puck on the first one and I found the back of the net. It feels amazing.”

Jacob Monks put Little Caesars on the board with 4:10 left in the period, taking Kade Meyer’s feed from the right corner for a shot outside the left post.

Metro said that for the most part, the Sabres were able to control the tempo.

“We’ve played Caesars now twice. We know they’re a pretty good run-and-gun type team. They had a 9-8 game against Carolina,” he said. “They want to stretch the ice. We just really put a lot of emphasis on protecting inside the dots and not letting any odd-man rushes get behind us.”

Metro said the early lead also was a huge factor.

“I think every game this week, other than maybe one, we got scored on first,” he said. “We were not expecting to get scored on first, but if it happened, we were well ready for it. It happened to us yesterday and the game before that, we were down by two.”

“Today, we really put an emphasis on trying to get the first goal,” he said. “I think once we did, it really energized us.”

Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.