The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Olmsted Falls books allWhite Division final
The Southwestern Conference hockey tournament final will come down to a pair of White Division squads, as Olmsted Falls booked its spot with a 6-5 overtime victory over Midview.
One quest continued while another came to an end Jan. 15 following a Southwestern Conference Tournament semifinal between topseeded Midview and No. 4 seed Olmsted Falls.
With a 6-5 overtime victory, the “vengeance tour” has one more stop for the Bulldogs, while the Middies’ quest to become the first back-to-back SWC champions since Westlake (2014-15) came to a close.
The final stop on the Bulldogs’ tour is Amherst, which defeated North Olmsted, 3-1, in the other Jan. 15 semifinal. The date, time and location of the final is to be determined.
This is the first appearance in an SWC final for Olmsted Falls (9-8-0).
And it was all due to special teams.
A day removed from going 2 of 8 on power plays in a quarterfinal win over Avon Lake, Olmsted Falls converted on 4 of 6 power-play opportunities — including the game-winner in overtime — against Midview (7-6-2) and added a shorthanded goal for good measure to have special teams play account for five of the Bulldogs’ six goals.
“We try and work the puck up to the points and get a shot from the middle (when on a power play),” Olmsted Falls coach Zach Walczak said. “Crash the nets. Simple hockey.
“Our special teams this year have been pretty incredible. I don’t know off the top of my head the number of shorthanded goals, but it’s got to be close to double digits . ... And our power play. Yesterday we were only 2-for-8, today 4-for6. When we stay out of the box ... this is what happens.”
The overtime game-winner completed a hat trick for Olmsted Falls’ Dom Conte. The junior scored 1:05 into overtime — and 13 seconds into a 4-on-3 power play — to send the Bulldogs to the championship game.
“We were just trying to work it at the top and get the defender out of position,” Conte said. “Once I got that opportunity, I just tried to put it on net and see what happens.”
The goal was another example of the Bulldogs taking advantage of the few opportunities they had, being outshot by the Middies, 41-25. It’s possible no two opportunities were bigger than the pair of goals Olmsted Falls scored with only 17 seconds remaining in both the first and second periods.
“I hate giving up a goal in the last minute of a period,” Midview coach Rick Verlotti said. “It seems like we’ve done it quite often this year.”
Midview led the game, 3-2, after the first period, but Verlotti believed an eight-day break between games for the Middies may have resulted in a start that was slower than he would have liked.
“It’s almost like football,” Verlotti said. “You see these teams resting players, and you wonder. Then they come back and they’re not as sharp. If you’re in this tournament and they played a game or even two prior, they’ve got a huge advantage. We’ve been sitting there for a long time, and you jump into a game and it’s just very difficult.
“I know that the way they have it set up they want to get some of the lower seeds some games early, and I get that. I’m actually all for that. I think it’s a good setup. They’ve done a nice job with that. But there is certainly something to be said about sitting at home for that long and trying to go.”
The Middies ballooned their lead to 4-2 on a Nicholas Verlotti goal early in the second period, but powerplay goals by Zach Henley and Max Kirth-Gruszczynski and then the only non-special teams goal of the night for Olmsted Falls by Conte gave the Bulldogs a 5-4 lead entering the third period.
“It was huge,” Walczak said of getting the lead after two periods. “I wish we could have kept the momentum in the beginning of the third period, but that period was huge.”
The Middies scored courtesy of Jeffrey Mullins to knot the game at 5-5 two minutes into the third period, but that was it for the Middies.
“I’m just trying to push my hardest right now and play for my team,” Conte said. “We lost to this team last time that we played them. We wanted to win, and now we just want to keep going.”