River’s season ends at hands of St. Edward THE SCORE

So close, and yet so far away.

The Rocky River hockey team had chance after chance Feb. 25 to put the puck in the net and give favored St. Edward a battle in their district semifinal at the Brooklyn Ice Arena. Instead, the Pirates couldn’t find the magic and the 11time state champion Eagles came away with a 3-1 victory.

St. Edward, now 30-71, moves on to face rival and defending state champion St. Ignatius March 4 in the district championship game. The Wildcats romped past Holy Name in the other semifinal, 9-0. Rocky River finishes the season at 2210-1.

The only thing keeping the Pirates from being shut out was a relatively meaningless goal with just 18 seconds to play, as River Whitnable swatted the puck into the goal. It was a power play goal, but don’t be fooled by that fact — the reason Rocky River lost was because of its inability to score on multiple power plays.

“That hurts,” Rocky River coach Chris Cogan said. “We had quite a few opportunities and for a while early on, it seemed we couldn’t even get set up. It would have been nice to capitalize on one of those early and then see what happened.”

The Pirates even had two stretches in which they had a two-man advantage, but until Whitnable’s late score, they were unable to cash in on any advantage. St. Edward ST. EDWARD 3, ROCKY RIVER 1

goalie Andrew Stewart kept them at bay with 25 saves and the Eagles did a good job of pressuring the Rocky River puck handlers.

“I think the minor penalties were 10-3,” St. Edward coach Troy Gray said. “You never go into a game expecting to have seven more penalties than the other team. But when you get a goalkeeping performance like that, you’re hard to beat.”

The key stretch of the contest came late in the second period. The Eagles were clinging to a 1-0 lead that came on an unassisted goal early in the first period by Stephen O’Sullivan, who followed up his own shot by stuffing in the rebound. While St. Edward clearly was the dominant team, the Eagles had only a onegoal lead and they had trouble staying out of the penalty box. In all, Rocky River had five power plays in the second period, including a two-man advantage for 49 seconds, but to no avail.

With time running out in the second period, the Pirates were on a power play, but they got sloppy with the puck. St. Edward forced a turnover in Rocky River territory and quick as a flash Eagles captain Curtis Szelestra put in a shorthanded goal with just 7 seconds left in the period. Szelestra was moving to his left and angled the puck back over the left shoulder of Rocky River goalie Ryan Dunning.

“(Neil) Corrigan hit the guy at the wall, the puck popped out and I picked it up,” Szelestra said. “That gave us a lot of momentum going into the third period.”

Suddenly, instead of possibly knotting the score against the third-ranked team in the state, the Pirates found themselves down by two goals, a deficit they were unable to overcome.

“We had just gone over clock management at the end of the first period,” Cogan said. “You have to know the time and the situation without screwing around. You have to know who’s on the ice. Curtis certainly is a game changer.”

Gray also referred to the shorthanded goal as the key moment in the game.

“When we were down two men I felt if we could get that one killed off we’d be OK,” he said. “It was all hands on deck until we killed it. Curtis getting the shorthanded goal was the game-changer.”

Any hope the Pirates had of staging a comeback ended with 6:01 to play, as Corrigan scored on an assist from Szelestra, giving St. Edward a 3-0 lead and the opportunity to face topseeded St. Ignatius.

“It’s what we work for every year, to play Iggie in the district final,” Gray said. “Everything gets thrown out the window for this one.”

The Pirates had nine seniors on the roster., which is a lot. But Cogan is hopeful the program is headed in the right direction.

“The last five to eight years we’ve been making improvements,” he said. “I hope this is the norm. I’d like to keep it going and get down to Columbus.”