AMHERST, N.Y. -- It was the Perfect Storm — the coming together of the Cape Cod Storm and the Keweenaw Storm in the 19-and-Under title game at the Toyota-USA Hockey Tier II Girls National Championships.
A first-period tally and a third-period breakaway goal gave Cape Cod the 2-1 victory. Madison Haberl scored both goals.
“I feel extremely fortunate right now,” Cape Cod coach Scott Ghelfi said. ”I think we had some opportunities that we missed. We did have the jump on them with that first goal. But then once they tied it, that seemed to light their fire and we were back on our heels the rest of the game.”
That first goal by Haberl came with less than two minutes left in the first on a puck that was bouncing every which way.
“Kelly [Ferreira] and I broke it out of the zone and then Kelly was carrying it wide,” Haberl said. ”I just cut right to the net. I hit it first and it didn’t go in, and it was kind of in the air, and it dropped, and I just hit it again.”
Then the penalties started coming. Cape Cod committed two in the first, three in the second and four in the third, providing Keweenaw with eight power play opportunities.
Keweenaw, which hails from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, took advantage of the second one, tying the game 20 seconds into the middle stanza. Maybelline Beiring shot it from the left dot to beat Madison Scavotto.
However, that was all Keweenaw was able to muster with the numerous power plays. Shortly after the tying goal, Cape Cod killed off a two-man advantage for 1:50 and then late in the third withstood nearly a minute of being down two players.
“The girls have really good wheels,” Ghelfi said. ”I had confidence with every line to kill penalties. We’re just so active on the penalty kill that people have a tough time setting up against us. We did have a couple of five-on-threes, which didn’t make it any easier.”
Haberl gave Cape Cod the lead at 9:42 of the final period, stealing the puck at her opponent’s blue line, springing her on a breakaway.
“I don’t know how I got it,” Haberl said. ”I just remember I was at center ice and I had the puck. I was freaking out. I normally don’t do good with that. But all I could think about is the semifinal game with my high school team and I literally had the same exact thing happen, and I just shot it the same exact way because I knew if I deked it I would not do good with that. I just shot the puck. I can’t believe it went in.”
Her shot beat Stephanie King over the glove just inside the crossbar and post.
“I feel like they handled us in the second and third periods and we could never get it going after that first period,” Ghelfi said. ”We could never get our groove back because of the penalties. Thank God for Maddy Scavotto, our goaltender. She came up huge when we needed her. And Maddy Haberl, she got that one break on the turnover and she made it pay, and here we are.”
Keweenaw pulled its goalie with 1:13 left, part of which was on the power play, but the Storm could not get the equalizer.
“We’re really excited,” Haberl said. ”We’re really glad we did it as a team. All this hard work. We’ve been together for so long. Our dreams came true.”
The win completed a Massachusetts sweep of the Tier II girls’ championships.
“That’s incredible,” Ghelfi said. ”We have a preseason tournament in September and Charles River was at our tournament. They won our U16 division and we won our U19 division. So that’s pretty cool our home tournament can boast two national champions now. It’s just incredible for Massachusetts.”
Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.
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SAN JOSE, Calif. -- After skating off the ice in Buffalo with last year’s USA Hockey National Championships bronze, the Anaheim Lady Ducks 12 & Under girls' ice hockey team had only one thing on their minds -- skate off the ice at Logitech Ice Center in San Jose with gold medals at USA Hockey's 2007 National Championship.
Mission accomplished.
Dylanne Crugnale’s power play goal at 3:24 of the third period snapped a 1-1 tie and powered the Lady Ducks to a 3-1 victory against Assabet Valley in Sunday’s Girls’ 12 & Under title game.
“This was our goal ever since last year,” said Anaheim coach Kathy McGarrigle. “We took the bronze last year and we wanted the gold this year.”
With nearly 70 percent of last year’s bronze medal team returning, the Lady Ducks won all six of their games this week on the way to the title. After sweeping away their three round robin opponents by a combined score of 14-2, the Pacific District champions dispatched Michigan District champion Detroit, 4-1, in the quarterfinals and blanked Central District champion Team Illinois, 2-0, in the semifinals on Saturday to advance to Sunday’s title game.
Assabet Valley, which fielded three teams in Sunday’s four championship games, won two of its three round robin games and tied the third to advance to Saturday’s quarterfinal against Pittsburgh. After dropping the Aviators, 4-1, Assabet Valley defeated Connecticut, 5-2, in the semifinals.
Sunday’s title contest started out as a tight, defensive struggle with neither team able to generate much offense.
The first good scoring chance of the game did not materialize until the 9:20 mark of the opening period, when Assabet Valley goalie Brianna Laing turned away Nicole Troung at point blank range.
Assabet Valley fired two shots on goal late in the first period, but Anaheim netminder Noelle White denied both shots.
Both goaltenders turned away the first three shots they faced in the second period and the first penalty of the game -- a cross-check on Assabet Valley’s Taylor Cross at 6:18 of the second period -- failed to produce a goal for Anaheim.
After two scoreless periods, it appeared the game could be headed for a scoreless overtime, but Anaheim’s offense finally solved Laing. Anne Pankowski sidestepped an Assabet Valley defender at the blue line and skated in alone on Laing, slipping a shot past the Assabet Valley goalie for the first score of the game at 1:39 of the third.
“We have some very talented players on this team,” McGarrigle said. “They don’t stop digging. They started taking it to the net and started shooting.”
Assabet Valley responded almost immediately, as, just 13 seconds later, Jamie Haddad crashed the Anaheim net, disrupting White and the Lady Ducks’ defense enough to allow Janelle Ferrara to pound the loose puck into the net for the tying goal.
“Once one goal went in, that seemed to open everything up,” McGarrigle said. “Of course, then Assabet came right back and tied it up, but we’ve talked with them about responding -- when you go a goal down or a team comes back and scores right after you score -- and what we were we going to do.”
Just 90 seconds later, Crugnale provided Anaheim’s response, firing a power play laser past Laing, in front of whom Anaheim had cluttered the net with plenty of traffic. The goal proved to be the eventual game-winner.
To seal USA Hockey's National Championship, Lauren Kilroy scored an insurance goal with just 2:30 remaining.
Story courtesy Red Line Editorial, Inc.