Sports

Eagles win Class 4A state hockey championship

WASILLA -- West wasn't denied this time around.

One year after falling in the Class 4A state championship, the Eagles held off a furious West Valley comeback attempt to take a 4-3 win in the final game of the prep pucks season at the Menard Center in Wasilla.

Codie Cope scored twice for West, and his empty-net score with less than a minute left proved to be the game-winner.

"We came into this game wanting to play our butts off and not get second place," said Cope, one of six seniors on the team.

The win completed a four-year turnaround for the Eagles, who failed to reach state in 2012, finished third two seasons ago and made the title game last season.

"These guys have come a long way," said West coach Nathan Shasby.

West also got goals from senior Dawson Ellingworth and sophomore Michael Curran, as well as 15 saves from sophomore goalie Chris Alexakis.

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"One of the big things that kept us motivated this season was to play for everybody, don't play for yourself," Alexakis said.

Stoshie Skorulski, Ty Proffitt and Mike Olsen scored for the Wolfpack, who got 17 saves from Keel Simon.

West Valley was the superior team in the early going, but it didn't show on the scoreboard -- the teams skated to a 1-1 tie after one period. The Wolfpack fired off the first six shots of the game, and the sixth one turned into the game's first goal when Skorulski came streaking down the left wing and lifted a shot that beat Alexakis high on the stick side at the 8:32 mark.

West's offense was moribund for much of the first period and didn't generate a shot on net for nearly 10 minutes. Despite getting outshot 7-3, the Eagles pulled even on a power play goal by Curran, whose one-timer off a Mac Fair feed slammed into the back of the net with 2:27 left before the first intermission.

"We started a little slow, but the kids came out in the second and third and played championship hockey," Shasby said.

The second period was a dramatically different affair that ended in an identical result. Each team picked up a goal despite a 10-7 West advantage in shots on goal. The Eagles took a 2-1 lead when Alex Bardsley left a drop pass in the slot for Cope, whose clinical finish made it 2-1 with 5:33 left before the break.

The Wolfpack answered two minutes later on their first power play with a marshmallow of a goal, a lazy floating knuckleball off the stick of Proffitt that handcuffed Alexakis and snuck past him to make it 2-2.

Ellingworth put the Eagles within reach of a state championship when he put back a rebound of Hamm's shot with 10:07 left in the third.

Things got wild in the final minutes. Cope's empty-net goal with 43.3 seconds left seemed to ice the game for the Eagles, but the Wolfpack clawed back when Olsen scored with 14 seconds left. Ellingworth won a pair of crucial draws in the closing seconds, a time span Cope said seemed to draw out for hours.

"The last seven seconds were killer," he said.

When the final buzzer sounded, West players stormed the ice for a wild celebration in front of their own net.

"This is one of the greatest feelings I've ever had so far," Cope said.

West Valley coach Wayne Sawchuck said he was proud of his team's effort, especially after the Eagles had seemingly won the game with Cope's second goal.

"They left everything on the ice and that's all I can ask," he said of his team, which was trying to win its first state title in its third attempt. "We just fell short this time."

West Valley was the first non-Anchorage school to reach the title game since Lathrop won the championship in 2009.

The title was the second for West, which won it all in 2010 and was playing in its third state final in six years. The Eagles, who lost 4-1 to South in the championship game last season, improved to 2-3 in state title games.

"I'm probably going to go home and cry," Ellingworth said. "I'm so happy."

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Hawks win Greatland title

Aaron Allred stopped all 36 shots he faced to lead Houston to a 3-0 win over Monroe in the Greatland state championship game on Saturday at the Menard Center in Wasilla.

Tristan Hracha,Yuiry Natekin and Reed Humphreys scored goals for the Hawks, who also defeated Monroe last week for the Greatland Conference regular-season title.

Hracha's goal in the first period was the lone score until the third, when Natekin's strike gave the Hawks a bit of breathing room. Humphreys' goal came with Monroe goalie Nathaniel Jankowski on the bench in favor of an extra attacker.

The win was the seventh small-schools state championship for the Hawks and their first since 2007.

Wasilla, South finish with wins

Wasilla got a hat trick from Russell Harren and goals from Garrett Conroy and Luke Schruf to finish third in the Class 4A state hockey tournament.

Kiana Verplancke made 17 stops to backstop her second tournament win for Wasilla

Isaac Vincent and Jake Branch scored for fifth-place Colony.

In the fourth-place game, South's Noah Ashley scored the game-winning power play goal in a 3-1 win over Dimond. South also got a pair of goals from Bryson Schmitz and 20 saves from Jeremy Swayman.

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Sixth-place Dimond got a goal from Austin Reed and 31 saves from Darrin Hammingh.

FIRST NATIONAL CUP

Menard Center, Wasilla

Saturday's results

Class 4A championship -- West 4, West Valley 3

Class 4A third place -- Wasilla 5, Colony 2

Class 4A fourth place -- South 3, Dimond 1

Greatland championship -- Houston 3, Monroe 0

Matt Tunseth

Matt Tunseth is a former reporter for the Anchorage Daily News and former editor of the Alaska Star.

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