Warriors edge Knights

WASILLA — The Wasilla Warriors skated to a 3-2 win over Valley rival Colony in the third-place game of the ASAA/First National Bank Division 1 State Hockey Tournament at the Menard Center on Saturday.

After both teams advanced to the quarterfinals, Colony fell 1-0 to eventual runner-up South and Wasilla fell to eventual champion West to set a rematch of the region title game which Colony won 3-2.

“t’s the state tournament. It’s a big stage to where it means a little bit more than our region championship game,” said Wasilla head coach Jacob Dargis. “They got that one but this one felt good to kind of get a little bit of payback as far as winning that big game.”

Wasilla started out by punishing Knights sophomore goaltender Bryant Marks with shots, scoring twice in the first period. Senior Langston Bouma found the back of the net first and was followed by junior Chase Schachle. After a tough loss to West Anchorage, Dargis said that the Warriors had hoped to play in the championship game but were able to maintain their competitive edge during the third-place game against Colony.

“Our guys possess the mental fortitude to come out and flip that switch and know that we still have a lot to play for and then having a rival team against you is an easy way to get up for it,” said Dargis. “I think we proved throughout the year that we were one of the top teams in the state.”

As Wasilla skated with a commanding 2-0 lead, the Warriors opened the second period with another goal from Schachle. For most of the second period and into the third period, the Warriors allowed Colony skaters to attack toward the Wasilla goaltender, but the Knights had no luck in getting the puck past sophomore Phillip Brevogel.

“He’s a very very competitive kid where you can see that fire in him and sometimes he likes to push that outwards a little bit, but it kind of is what gets him motivated to stay focused in the game. He was outstanding,” said Dargis of Brevogel.

With just over two minutes left in the game, desperation struck for the Knights. Junior Kaden Ketchum battled for a puck off the boards on Brevogel’s right side, gained possession and skated toward the net before pulling the puck back to the right and finding the open net for the Knight’s first goal.

“We were down 3-0 going into the third and they still came out ready to go, it just wasn’t quite to the level that we were looking for and we’ve had a long weekend. They went double overtime with Dimond, we had a tough game with south last night so physically everybody’s pretty drained,” said Colony head coach Chris Yaskus.

Nearly a minute after Ketchum ended Brevogel’s shutout, freshman Carsen Lantto battled in front of the net for the puck which eventually found its way past Brevogel and cut the Warrior lead to one goal with less than a minute remaining.

“We still we kept going those last couple minutes, got it together and started to make some stuff happened and it was a nail biter all the way until the end,” said Yaskus.

Colony pulled Marks in favor of a sixth attacker and created multiple opportunities to challenge Brevogel, who stood in the way of the Knight’s comeback attempt until the time ran out on Colony’s chances to tie the game. Brevogel tallied 36 saves in net for the Warriors and Marks saved 26 shots for Colony.

Dargis and Yaskus met for the first time in the state tournament, as both coaches are in their first year at the helm of their respective hockey teams.

“We’ve got some big things going on in the program as we move forward. It’s exciting. I don’t think anybody expected us, other than the 20 people in that locker room expected us to pick off Dimond and we did,” said Yaskus. “We played closer with South than anybody expected us to, picked up the region title so it was a lot better year than a lot of people expected of us.”

Ketchum was named to the all-tournament team for the Knights. Schachle and Troy Randall were named to the all-tournament team for the Warriors.