In the early part of the game it wasn’t so much Saint Ignatius’ skill with the puck but their tenacity without it.  St. Edward had their fair share of puck possession and squeezed off a few shots on Saint Ignatius senior goaltender Zak Kovatch.  But the Eagles, who badly needed to get an early goal in this game, came away empty handed.  Then a relentless Saint Ignatius forecheck started to give the St. Edward defensemen fits.

“That’s playoff hockey,” Saint Ignatius head coach Pat O’Rourke said.  “You could tell in the first couple minutes the kids were nervous.  I know our guys were squeezing their sticks a little bit.  That’s why you’ve got to play simple hockey and keep the puck in their end.”

On the first goal, senior forward Aidan Millett created a turnover behind the goal and senior Cam Kurtz picked up the puck and fed it out to junior Erik Galauner and he slammed it home from the doorstep.

“The first couple of shifts they were in our end the whole time,” O’Rourke said.  “If they pop a puck in the net there who knows what happens.  We weren’t putting the puck on net enough, we ended up getting a few goals off the forecheck that relaxed us a little bit opened the floodgates a little.”

Kurtz took an interference penalty at the 4:22 mark to give the Eagles an opportunity to tie the game on the power pay, but relentless pressure from Wildcat senior penalty killers Danny Cook and Clay Gazdak prevented St. Edward from getting organized and out of their end much less setting up in the Saint Ignatius zone.

At 9:37 the Wildcats went on the power play, but a strong St. Edward penalty kill seemed like it might give the Eagles something to feed off.  Just :11 seconds after the penalty expired, however, Galauner and an Eagles defenseman fought over a bouncing puck in the left circle.  Galauner was able to corral the puck and feed it across to Kurtz who whipped the puck up under the bar over the glove hand of St. Edward senior goaltender Nate Cappellazzo.

The line combined for the third time with 1:24 left in the opening period.  Galauner fired a shot from the right faceoff dot that went off the short side of the net, but he was first on the puck behind the net.  He fed it back out to Kurtz who was crashing the net to Cappelazzo’s left.  Kurtz slammed it home inside the far post from five feet out.  It was a back-breaker and sent the Eagles to the locker room for the first intermission down 3-0.

Each of the first three Saint Ignatius goals came from within five feet of Cappellazzo.  

“Sometimes we over-rely on our skill,” O’Rourke said.  “It wasn’t until we started to get a little more gritty that we had the advantage.”

St. Edward had to do something early in the second to get something going – some kind of momentum swing that they could build on if they were going to get back in it.  They did come out stronger, generating some speed with the puck through the neutral zone, and Cappellazzo came up with a couple big saves, but the momentum was short-lived.

At 4:23 Saint Ignatius junior defenseman Aidan Conway sent a shot through traffic from the blue line that found the net to make it 4-0.  Millett was stopped on a breakaway less than a minute later, but he would score a rebound goal at 7:47 to extend the Wildcat lead to five.

A roughing penalty put Ignatius on the power play shortly after and Michael Boehm set up Millett for a one-timer from the right faceoff dot to make it 6-0.  Junior Chuckie Wilson and senior Matt Sullivan added goals before the end of the period and it was 8-0 after two.

“Nobody expected that in the whole arena I don’t think,” O’Rourke said of the final score.  “I actually had a gut feeling that it was going to go to overtime.”

Galauner picked up an assist on the lone goal of the third period – scored by Boehm – to give him a five-point outing (1-4-5).  Kurtz finished with 2-2-4 and Millett (2-1-3) also had a pair of goals.

The performance of the Wildcats' top line was impressive but more for their straight-forward style and efficiency than their creativity.

"We've worked on that a lot in practice," Galauner said.  "Just getting pucks to the net and not over-passing it.  It got the job done."

Toledo St. Francis and New Albany will face off in the other semifinal next Saturday with the two winners playing at noon on Sunday to determine the Ohio state champion for 2020.

--- Scott Harrington for Ohio Hockey Digest