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EDWARDSVILLE – Zach Cohn scored two goals, once on the power play, while Brody Patton stopped 36 shots, and Edwardsville scored twice on the power play and once shorthanded, to win Game Two of their best-of-three Mississippi Valley Club Hockey Association Class 2A final 4-0 over O’Fallon, sweeping the series in two straight.
It's the 15th MVCHA championship in the team’s history, and it’s a grand tradition to uphold for the Tigers.
“I’m just happy for the kids; they played great tonight,” said Edwardsville head coach Jason Walker. “They’ve played great all year, and to see them have all their hard work rewarded, it’s awesome.”
The Tigers came back from 5-2 down to force a shootout in Game One, which Edwardsville won 6-5, taking the shootout 1-0, and gave the team momentum going into Game Two, and the Tigers were able to use the momentum to take charge.
“Yeah, I think so,” Walker said. “We talked about it. I give O’Fallon all the credit in the world tonight. They were flying, and they played like a team with their backs against the wall, and a team that had been one of the best teams in the league all year. I thought they were outstanding. I thought our guys kind of weathered the storm, killed two big penalties in the first period, and then, kind of settled into the game. We played outstanding.”
The two power play goals, one in the second period, and one in the third, helped the Tigers immensely, with the shorthanded goal that made it 4-0 the dagger.
“The special teams in this whole series was key,” Walker said. “Our power play was outstanding, our penalty kill was awesome, got a shorthanded goal in Game One and here today. The special teams were a big factor.”
Looking back at the entire season, there was plenty of good things to like about the Tigers, and how the team approached things throughout the campaign.
“I think just the resilience of the group,” Walker said. “We found different ways to win, different guys stepped up. When you look at it, we had two unbelievable goaltenders that could keep us in every game, that could steal games for us. We had a great outstanding defensive corps. All the way down to it, we played eight different people on (defense), and they were all great. And offensively, everybody was able to chip in. And our leaders were our best players in the biggest games. They were outstanding. Our first line was unbelievable, and the leadership of the group, this is a total team. I’m so proud of these guys, I’m proud of the way they were able to battle through all the adversity, and I’m super happy to see them carry that trophy around the ice.”
Both teams had good opportunities in the first period, but Patton for the Tigers, and Nick Sherman for the Panthers, stood on their heads and made some good saves. The Tigers killed off two penalties in the period, one to Grant Huneke, and one to Luke Thomlinson, without much trouble. In the second period, the Tigers struck first when Jackson Ruf took a pass from Huneke and scored at 3:36 to give Edwardsville a 1-0 lead. Later on, with the Tigers on the power play, Cohn took a pass from Andrew Mauer and beat Sherman with a good shot at 9:14 to give the Tigers a 2-0 lead after the second period.
The Tigers put things away on a two-man advantage early in the third period, when Cohn scored his second goal of the game from Thomlinson and Dean Schlarman at 3:09 to give Edwardsville a 3-0 lead. With the Tigers shorthanded later in the period, Schlarman took a loose puck in the O’Fallon zone, skated in on Sherman, and scored unassisted at 9:46 to give Edwardsville the 4-0 win and the Class 2A championship.
The celebration at the end of the game rivaled the St. Louis Blues Stanley Cup celebration in 2019, with sticks and gloves all over the ice, as the Tiger players surrounded Patton in a celebration of their championship.
The Tigers end the MVCHA season at 26-1-1, and head out to the Los Angeles area for the national tournament next month.
Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.
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