Wasilla skates past Kenai to win tournament

If revenge is a dish served sweet, last weekend was one big helping of dessert for the Wasilla hockey team.

The Warriors won the Region III title by beating the Kenai Kardinals 2-1 Saturday night at the Palmer Ice Arena.

In the process of winning the title, they had to beat the Colony Knights and the Kardinals, against whom the Warriors were a combined 1-3-1 against in the regular season. By winning when it counted most, the Warriors advance to the state tournament.

"We knew we could beat those two teams, and it makes it better that we did it at regionals," said defenseman Alex Gittlein.

For the second night ina row, the story for the Warriors was the big man between the pipes. Goalie Ronnie Walker all but stole the region tournament for the Warriors. In two games, he stopped 64 of 66 shots he faced, including a whopping 39 saves on 40 shots in the title game. He finished the tournament with a goals-against average of 1.00 and a save percentage of .969.

"He's on a roll. He makes us that much better," Gittlein said. "He's got a lot of confidence right now."

The Warriors scored both of their goals within the first 4:01 of the game. Freshman Adam Friese started the scoring with a spectacular breakaway goal.

Tanner Dutcher fed Friese with a perfect pass from inside the Warriors' zone, and Friese got the pass and took off from center ice. After one move, he went top side, just over Kenai goalie Dan Silver's glove.

Senior captain Andrew Tumbleson followed with a second goal just 42 seconds later, firing a wrist shot high on Silver.

The puck rang off the crossbar and into the net so hard it came shooting back out of the net, giving the Warriors a 2-0 lead.

Kenai couldn't answer, but not for a lack of trying - in the second period, they kept Walker busy with a 19-shot barrage, thanks to several man-advantages. The Warriors were also playing without Track Palin, who was given a game misconduct after the first period for butt-ending a Kenai player.

Kenai pulled to within one after getting a power-play goal from Nelson Kempf with 5:57 to play in the contest. With the goal, the Kardinals also got momentum on their side, and they started turning up the pressure on the Warriors.

Two minutes after the Kenai goal, the Warriors took another penalty, giving Kenai ample opportunity to tie the score, but again, Walker was up to the task. He made a flashy glove save on a point-blank slapshot from the slot, and followed it up with a kick save on a two-on-one break for the Kardinals.

Kenai wasn't able to solve the Warriors late in the game, and Wasilla earned its first region title in at least 10 years.

With the victory, the Warriors locked up the top seed from Region III in the state tournament, which begins Thursday. The Warriors play Chugiak in the first round, at 10:30 a.m. Thursday.

Other first-round matchups in the 4A state tournament include South versus West Valley, Dimond versus Kenai and Lathrop versus West Anchorage.

Colony 13, Palmer 2

The Colony Knights advanced to the semifinals with a 13-2 victory over the host Palmer Moose on Friday night.

Scott Beckman scored six goals and Justin Gray added two more for the Knights. Blake Huppert had a goal and four assists, while Palmer got goals from Hunter Richards and Dylan Schindele in the contest.