Shamrocks blank Forest Hills Central in D1 semis
The Detroit Catholic Central Shamrocks once again clamped down defensively and posted a methodical 5-0 in over the Forest Hills Central Rangers Friday night to advance to their fourth straight Division 1 final where they will look to defend the title they have claimed in each of the last two years.
Catholic Central was suffocating defensively, especially five-on-five in posting their fifth consecutive shutout and their fifteenth for the season.
Offensively, Catholic Central spread things around as usual. It was Jackson Walsh who started the scoring for the Shamrocks with 5:31 remaining in the first period, shoveling in a loose puck to the left of the Ranger net.
Catholic Central added two more goals in the second period on breakaways. Ryan Wantuck streaked down the left side and cut across the face of goal with a backhander that found paydirt while the Shamrocks were short two players just 0:37 seconds into the second period. Sebastiano Iavasile made it 3-0 when he finished off a three-on-oh rush with a tap in.
Catholic Central did have some issues, however, with taking penalties.
The Shamrock penalty killers had to deal with both a long five-on-three disadvantage and a major penalty. But Catholic Central’s penalty kill was up to the task with the aid of goalie Kyle Moore, who made some sterling saves while the Shamrocks were shorthanded.
“In the second period, obviously, the penalty killers were huge, not only killing them off but scoring five-on-three and not letting them score is a huge momentum shift,” Shamrocks head coach Brandon Kaleniecki said. ”Actually, the penalty kill was beneficial to us even though no one wants to be in the box that much. I think it got us a little bit more in control, and we started to play a little bit better.”
Moore finished with 18 saves in all for Detroit Catholic Central.
Goalie Peter Nemmers made 37 saves for the Rangers, including an early penalty shot, keeping them in the game for much of the night. But like so many teams before them, Forest Hills Central never got their offense going against the Shamrocks, and a couple of Catholic Central power play goals in the third period — one each by Griffin Crampton and Nolan Galda — finished off the Rangers.
“We just try and do our job. It’s as simple as that — get pucks out of the zone. Hopefully, our forwards get the puck started down. They usually do a pretty good job. We usually build momentum from there, create turnovers and once it’s in the offensive zone, you don’t have to play a lot of defense,” senior defenseman Nate Gronzdieleski said.
“It’s like the saying goes, defense wins games. And I think it’s shown in our record this season,” captain Ryan Wantuck said.
Detroit Catholic Central (28-1) advances to Saturday’s D1 finals, where it will face Brighton a 4-3 winner over Hartland in triple overtime in the other semifinal. The Shamrocks defeated both teams this year, claiming a 2-1 win over Brighton in December and routing Hartland 7-1 on opening night in a game that was much closer than the final score would indicate.
“I think we know it’s going to be a good one,” Kaleniecki said. “It’s always going to be a big game (against either Hartland or Brighton) no matter the situation.”