Yeti return to the finals, Knights remain unbeaten

Yeti Sweep Eagles with 2 one goal wins (including one overtime win).

Ben Rossi has scored some big goals for the Yeti last two seasons.  Monday's game-winner in the second minute of overtime of game 1 was one of the biggest.  Eagles' goalie Henry Sutter was able to make an initial save on a long shot from Dave Jewell.  But the loose rebound squirted out just enough for Rossi to get his stick free to bang it home and cap off an exciting 6-5 win for the Yeti.

Rossi's winner would not have been possible without a big save from teammate Adam McKinley a minute earlier.  Eric Llewellyn had a grade A chance from the slot but McKinley was able to stick it aside.

Playing without Zach Smith and a cramping Cody Schuckers, the Yeti and Eagles traded jabs all game long.  Ryan Johnson scored the first of his 3 goals to open the game with a nice drive-to-the-net goal that John Rossi remarked looked like Bryan Rust from the Penguins.  Rossi tipped a slap pass home a couple minutes later to make it 2-0.  Jerred Amick got the Eagle son the board on a nice pass from Austin Boyd to close out the opening period.

Lewellyn added two on top of another Amick goal in the second period while Braxton McKinley and Johnson scored for the Yeti in the second.

With the score tied at 4 going in the third period, the defenses and goaltenders tightened up.  Johnson's third goal of the game came right after an expired penalty and gave the Yeti another lead that held until late in the period when Zac Gray scored on a long shot that deflected off a pad and into the net.  Despite some late chances, regulation ended with a tie and sent the game to the extra frame.

The Yeti victory gave them a 1-0 lead in the series with a second game scheduled for 8:20.

What were the yeti going to do for an encore?

How about scoring 2 goals in the final minute of regulation to clinch the series?  Not sure where to start with this game.  It was a wild game, lots of penalties, lots of good music, and lots of well played hockey on both sides for anyone who was not stuck in the penalty box.  The Yeti trailed 5-3 with just under 3 minutes remaining in regulation when Derik Day set Dave Jewell up for a 4th goal to close the gap to 5-4.  Day was out for a little length of time in the 2nd period but made his presence felt with good passing, especially late in the 3rd period to send his team to another championship appearance.  The Eagles called a time out following Dave Jewell’s goal to try to stop the momentum.  Henry Sutter knew that final stretch would feel like an eternity.  He helped his team keep a one goal lead up until the final minute, but the game and their season unraveled just like that.  Derik Day set Cody Schuckers up for the tying goal with 59 seconds remaining and it looked like we were on our way to overtime again.  30 seconds later, Derik set Dave Jewell up for another goal, this one on an impressive slap shot and just like that, the Yeti got the sweep with 2 hard fought wins to set up a more than likely rematch against the Knights.  Zach Smith was not able to make either game last night but Cody was able to make it to both games to help lessen the void.   It looked like the Eagles did a really good job of blocking out the tough overtime loss in the first game and it looked like game 3 would be necessary next week.  They led this game up until the last minute.  Eric Llewellyn’s goal put them up 2-0 in the first period.  Following a Braxton McKinley goal, the Eagles scored 2 goals in less than 20 seconds to go up 4-1 in the 2nd period.  Jerred Amick’s goal was followed up on the following face off by Zac Gray and it looked like they were on their way to a split, but the Yeti were able to settle down and closed the gap to 4-3 in the 3rd period.  Ben Rossi had a power play goal on another nice pass from Derik but the Eagles stopped the bleeding and went up 5-3 with around 5 minutes to go in the 3rd period (Boyd scored the goal)?  Then there was the final 3 minutes that ended the Eagles season.  They had a lot of close games with the star filled Knights and Yeti this season but could not quite find a way to get past them.   The Yeti are going back to the finals, but the Eagles definately made them earn their way back there.  Unfortunately for the eagles, it was the 3rd year in a row they fell short to the same team.  This year may have stung the most considering how they were so close to winning both games last night.

Knights 10  Colonials 6

There was not quite as much drama or as much excitement in this game, but for a minute, it looked like John Matchock’s prediction of a colonial win could come true.  Bob’s impressive slap shot in the 3rd period got past Clint and just like that, the colonials had closed a 3 goal deficit to 6 to 5 with just under 7 minutes remaining.  Following a Knights time out, the colonials got possession with Bob getting the ball that deflected off Brian’s stick but Jake Kline was able to get in the way of an attempted pass from Bob to Brian that could have possibly tied the game.  2 minutes later, the game was all but over.  Nate Galentine scored twice following the time out, including one that bounced off Colonial goalie John Matchock to stretch the lead to 7-5.  Galentine’s other goal came off a good set up from Noah.  Jake Kline scored twice including their 9th goal with Brandon Reiter scoring a 3rd period goal as well to put the game out of reach.   The Colonials did a pretty good job of containing everyone with the exception of Reiter in the 2 regular season games, but everyone got involved in the Knights scoring attack last night.  Jason Stamler got the first goal that seemed to hit every person out there before it got by John Matchock to give the Knights a 1- 0 lead in the first period.  Jay Edmiston scored twice for the colonials in the first period but they still trailed 4-2 at the end of the first period.  Brandon Reiter had 3 goals for the Knights including a couple earlier in the game that helped the Knights go up 6-3 at one point in the 2nd period but Zach Foradori did his best Phil Mace impersonation by scoring a power play goal late in the 2nd period to close the colonial deficit to 6-4.  Phil Mace was a late afternoon stratch which forced the colonials to snag Foradori from reffing duty last night.  Following the game, Bob was ready to offer Foradori a contract for next season.  Speaking of Bob, he scored 2 nice slap shot goals in this game with the first one closing the gap to 5-3 and the next one he scored closed it to 6-5.  Soon after that goal, the game was all but over following the knights 4-0 run late in the 3rd period.  Bob set Brian up for a meaningless goal with a minute left to make the final score 10-6.  Everyone on the floor in this game with the exception of the goalies and refs scored at least one goal.  John Matchock did not goalie in the 2 regular season games against the Knights but did a good job of trying to uphold his prediction in his interview last week.  Unfortunately, a couple tough bounces and deflections did not make things easy for him.  The Knights remain unbeaten but more importantly, are 1 win away from a return trip to the finals for a rematch against the Yeti.

Jay Edminston (Colonials)

1. 10-6 loss to the knights last night. What can you say about the overall team effort in the loss? I thought we played hard. Hung in there most of the game, just had a rough few minutes in the 3rd and the game got away from us.

   
   

2. That was your first game against them this season. What was your impression of them? They’re solid. They’re fast, move the puck well, and have some guys that can really rip it. They play as a unit and can really control the game for long stretches.

   
   

3. What positives can you take out of that game into the next game against them? I think we showed we can skate with them. The final score doesn’t reflect how close that game was for a long time. Couple extra guys to give us a breather could make a huge difference.

   
   

4. 3rd period got away. What do you think went wrong when they pulled away from you? I think we got a little tired, and started chasing too much. Couple rough bounces didn’t help anything either, those boards in Reynoldsville can be very unpredictable.

   
   

5. This is your first season in the XHL. Would you consider playing for the colonials again next season? My agent and I plan on sitting down with Bob after the season to start discussions on a contract extension. I’m very happy playing for the organization and optimistic both sides can come to a mutually beneficial agreement.

Adam McKinley (Yeti)

1. 2 games, 2 wins last night. What can you say about the overall team effort in each of those games? The effort was great in both games. We never panicked, even being down by 4 in the second game. This group never gives up. I'm proud of each of them.

2. Eagles got up by 3 in the 2nd game but you guys fought back. What do you think made the difference for you guys there at the end? Perseverance. We didn't look look at the score. We just knew we had to score the next goal.

   
   

3. Cody has not been able to play much this season. How do you think he did last night considering Zach wasn’t there? Cody can only add to the team and make it better. He has great hockey sense and knows what do and where to be. He fits in very well on this team.

   
   

4. The 2nd game featured a lot of penalties. How do you think your power play looked along with the penalty kill? Not bad! We scored a couple on the PP and our kill was pretty good.

   
   

5. With the win, you guys will get another trip to the finals (most likely against the knights). They remain undefeated on the season. Does the undefeated season they have going for them give you even more motivation for going up against them? Oh for sure! We would love to play the spoiler. We're the defending champions, but we know we're probably the underdogs in the match up. I think that gives us more motivation. We will all have to be at the top of our games! I'm looking forward to it!

   
   

Andy Calvert (Knights)

1. 10-6 win over the colonials last night. What can you say about the overall team effort in the win? It was a good overall team effort, had a rough patch there in the middle of the game but we managed to play our rolls and pull back together.

   
   

2. You guys pulled away in the 3rd period. What do you think you guys did better in that stretch? I think we just got comfortable started playing a little more lazy when we did get the lead in the beginning of the game.

   
   

3. They pulled to within 1 with plenty of time remaining in the 3rd period. What did you guys discuss in that time out you took? I’m not going to say exactly what we talked about, however we definitely noticed what we needed to do differently and It’s exactly what we’ll be doing next Monday.

   
   

4. It was the first time you guys played against Jay Edmiston this season. What was your impression of how he fit in with the colonials? I think Jay fits in with the colonials great, everyone on that team fits well anyone can make plays, I think the only thing colonials are missing is another fast player they have a lot of talented players just not enough speed though.

   
   

5. What are you expectations for the game or games against them next Monday? I know it’ll be a good game, the score often doesn’t show how competitive the games really were, especially when the goals are all scored at the end of games.. But congrats to yeti, and good luck everyone.