Sports

South beats Dimond, 3-1, and that makes Service CIC hockey champ

Connor Orr is just a freshman, but he sounded like an upperclassmen and veteran of Cook Inlet Conference hockey wars Thursday night when he stepped outside South's locker room at Ben Boeke Arena.

Orr delivered the third-period dagger in South's 3-1 victory over Dimond in a game filled with thundering hits, attacks and counterattacks. Music pounded inside his team's room. Yet, barely 15, he cautioned that his team shouldn't make too much of one win, albeit a satisfying one.

"We can't get too cocky,'' Orr said. "We've got to keep level heads. But (the win) is good for our confidence.''

Orr's humility seemed warranted in an eight-team conference where the top four clubs appear capable of beating one another in any given game.

Granted, South's win locked up the regular-season conference title for Service -- those two teams close the regular season with a game Saturday. Dimond is locked into the No. 2 seed heading into next week's CIC tournament. South sits No. 3 and West No. 4.

But Dimond split two games with Service, just as it did with South and West. And West owns a tie against South.

"This year, it's really tight,'' said South sophomore Noah Ashley, who opened the scoring Thursday.

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A few timely saves here, a timely goal there, and a higher seed could fall against an opponent from the top half of the league in next week's tournament. And that's largely how Thursday's game felt.

"I think it was a great game,'' said Dimond coach Dennis Sorenson. "Good hits, lots of action. We just didn't have any puck luck early.''

South prospered Thursday on sophomore Jeremy Swayman's 23 saves, 13 of which came in the first period, when Dimond enjoyed two power plays. The Lynx peppered Swayman with four shots in the first 40 seconds of their first power play, with two of the bids coming from relatively close range and the other two, though launched from long range, sneaking through traffic.

Ashley cracked a scoreless game five minutes into second period, when he dangled through the Lynx defense into the inner right circle and flicked a shot through the pads of Chris Gardeline (28 saves).

About five minutes later, Ben Trujillo furnished the Wolverines, whose lineup featured more freshmen and sophomores than upperclassmen, a 2-0 cushion after Daniel Ramsey's face-off win.

Orr put Dimond, which lost hard-hitting forward Chance Peters to an upper-body injury in the first period, in a tough spot less than three minutes into the third period.

South's Tanner Dragomir went to the bench for a change because a Dimond player had pitch-forked Dragomir's stick from his hands. Orr jumped onto the rink and, with helpers from Jonah Hayes and Wyatt Merrick, hammered a shot over Gardeline's shoulder for a 3-0 lead.

Orr's strike came in handy when Dimond's Tanner Rath scored with 94 seconds left. The Lynx pulled Gardeline for an extra attacker in the final 85 seconds, but to no avail.

Eagle River 4, Bartlett 0

Jesse Johnson scored two goals Thursday night to spark Eagle River to a 4-1 CIC win over Bartlett at the McDonald Center in Eagle River.

Josh Linn and Schuyler Davis also scored goals for the Mustangs, who received two assists each from Kyle Johnson and Riley Annis. Trent Burnham made 12 saves for Chugiak.

Tristan Stokes scored Bartlett's goal and Blayze Denton stopped 54 shots for a game save percentage of .931.

Reach Doyle Woody at dwoody@alaskadispatch.com, check out his blog at adn.com/hockey-blog and follow him on Twitter at @JaromirBlagr

Doyle Woody

Doyle Woody covered hockey and other sports for the Anchorage Daily News for 34 years.

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