Late surge powers unbeaten West Chester East past Downingtown West to another Ches-Mont National title
WEST GOSHEN >> In a 48-minute high school ice hockey game, 79 seconds doesn’t sound like much. But on Tuesday, with a championship on the line, West Chester East turned a deadlocked battle into a comfortable lead in the span of just 1 minute, 19 seconds.
The turbocharged surge wasn’t something new for the unbeaten Vikings, but the timing was impressive. It came in the third period of the ICSHL Ches-Mont National Division title game at Ice Line and proved to be the difference in a hard-fought 6-3 triumph over upset-minded Downingtown West.
“We’ve done that type of thing a bunch of times this season,” said East forward Ethan Fredericks.
“This was not going to be anything but a battle,” Vikings’ head coach Eric Wolf added. “(West) is very hard to score against and they battled the whole game.
“But I’m glad we were pushed. We fully expected it, and we needed it. Moving forward, I’m hoping this game will serve us well.”
Now 14-0 overall, East has now won back-to-back C-M National crowns. The Vikings have outscored their opponents 72-13 this season and head into the Flyers Cup (April 5-21) as the top-seed in Class A.
“To win the title in back-to-back years, it doesn’t happen much – look it up,” Wolf said. “We’ll enjoy it tonight, but it’s a stepping stone. We have bigger fish to fry.”
West Chester East has now handed Downingtown West (9-3-1) all three of its losses this season. But several minutes into the final period, the score was tied at 3-3.
“We had a scoring opportunity earlier in the third when (Trent) Thomas had a shot that went up (East keeper Jake) Godshall’s stick and into the glass – he generally puts those in,” said Whippets’ head coach Ryan Smith. “I said to my assistant coach that if we scored there to make it 4-3, it becomes a different game of momentum.”
Not long thereafter, Vikings’ sophomore defender Henry Thornton grabbed his own rebound, skated around the back of the net and slipped it past West goalie Aiden McHutchison with 11:46 to go. It wound up being the game-winner.
“I threw it on net, hoping for the best, and got the puck back and wrapped it around,” Thornton explained.
“It was a big goal for me and the team.”
A minute later, Danny Tirendi took a pass from Tristan D’Elia to make it 5-3. And then 19 seconds after that, Joey Cardarelli finished off the shockingly quick rally with an unassisted tally.
“We know (East) and we had a game plan that worked for the first two periods and, what, five minutes into the third period, and then it kind of came unraveled,” Smith said.
“(East’s) talent took over for a 1:19 and that was the difference in the game. There is a lot of talent over there and they did what they needed to do to put the game away.”
Wolf said: “After Thornton’s goal, that’s the time to strike so we put another one of our top groups out there, and hit them again, and again. Their eyes are watering, their nose might be bleeding – hit them again. And the guys came through.
“We just came at them in a wave, and when we do that, we are hard to stop.”
The spurt overshadowed another fine outing in the net for McHutchison. In all, he stopped 38 shots, and kept West in contention during the early going when the Vikings were peppering him with shots.
“We weren’t worried in the locker room (before the third period),” Thornton said. “We knew we could pull out a victory.
“(West) has a great goalie and but if you keep throwing pucks on net, they are eventually going to go in.”
Wolf acknowledged afterwards that he challenged his team during the intermission between the second and third periods.
“All I said was that hard work is beating talent,” he recalled. “I told them that they have to decide if talented players can work hard. I said if you can do that, we will win this game. If you continue what we were doing in the first two periods, it probably wasn’t going to happen.
“They made their decision.”
Despite being out-shot 14-2 at the time, Downingtown West opened the scoring midway through the first when a two-on-one ended with an assist from Thomas Fetterman to Zak Spero. But just before the end of the period, East tied it on a shorthanded goal by Gregory Diamond.
The Vikings were in front 2-1 after an early goal by Chase Becnel, but a flurry of goals at the end of the second period knotted the score again. The Whippets’ Harrison Weingartner scored with 2:21 on the clock, but 31 seconds later Fredericks put East back in front. And then 17 seconds after that, Spero notched his second goal of the evening to set up the finish.
In all, the Vikings had the edge in shots on goal 44-13. West is the number one seed in the 2A bracket for the upcoming Flyers Cup Tournament.
“We knew we would get out-shot tonight,” Smith said. “But we have a lot of guys with experience and they’ve been here before. We are sad about the loss but we are focusing on Flyers Cup now and hoping to win that.
“They have nothing to hang their heads about. Hockey is a game of mistakes and we made a few there and it cost us the game.”
With the Ches-Mont’s first unblemished regular season record in more than a decade, West Chester East now has the playoff crown. And even though there’s loftier challenges ahead, the Vikings were in a celebratory mood on Tuesday.
“Back-to-back champions, there’s not much better than that,” Fredericks said.
“Running the table in the Ches-Mont just doesn’t happen,” Wolf said. “Our players should be proud of that.”
West Chester East 6, Downingtown West 3
W.C. East 1 2 3 – 6
Downingtown West 1 2 0 – 3
W.C. East goals: Diamond, Becnel, Fredericks, Thornton, Tirendi, Cardarelli.
Downingtown West goals: Spero 2, Weingartener.
Goalie saves: Godshall (WCE) 10; McHutchison (DW) 38.
