daily news miner article from the game

West Valley skaters stun North Pole
By Danny Martin

Published Saturday, February 7, 2009

NORTH POLE — West Valley went from an underdog in the Mid Alaska Conference high school hockey tournament on Friday night to a team bound for the state tournament.

After a 3-5 conference and 9-10 overall finish in the regular season, there weren’t many expectations that the third-seeded Wolfpack would be playing at the Polar Ice Center in tonight’s championship game against the top- seeded Lathrop Malemutes.

There also weren’t expectations on Friday that West Valley would get 13 power-play chances against tournament host and second-seeded North Pole, or that Ben Henne would score on three of them, or that Tyler Bolles would provide the game-winner in the 4-3 triumph with the puck bouncing off a Patriots defender’s stick.

“That’s the joy of being the underdog and winning — everybody loves an upset,” Henne, a junior left wing, said with a huge smile outside of the Wolfpack’s lockerroom after his team overcame a two-goal deficit in the third period.

There was anything but joy next door in the lockerroom of the Patriots, whose 6-2 conference and 15-5 overall record in the regular season included two victories over the Wolfpack. However, it’s the Wolfpack rather than Patriots who are playing at 6:45 tonight against Lathrop, a 7-0 winner over the fourth-seeded Juneau-Douglas Crimson Bears later Friday night.

“It’s pretty quiet,” North Pole assistant coach Derek Linnell said of the postgame atmosphere in the Patriots’ lockerroom. “A few kids are really upset. I don’t know if they all were but they should have been, because us coaches were pretty upset.”

The winner of tonight’s game will be the MAC’s top seed for the Class 4A State Tournament, while the loser will be the second seed for the tournament in Wasilla on Thursday through Saturday.

Dylan Longoria scored twice for the Patriots, including the only score of the first period. The junior center battled through a Wolfpack defender’s check in the slot and slipped a backhand past West Valley goaltender Cacy Wilfer into the left corner of the net.

“I got a good hand on it from a good pass from Matt Sanford, he had a solid game today,” Longoria said of Sanford, who had a goal and an assist in the game. “Cody (Kurkowski) gave him a good pass to get up to me and I just finished it off for him.”

North Pole, though, had five penalties for 10 minutes in the first period, compared a single minor West Valley. It proved to be a sign of things to come.

North Pole was assessed 15 penalties for 40 minutes to West Valley’s seven for 14 minutes. Among the Wolfpack’s 13 power plays were four two-man advantage sessions, and Henne capitalized twice on the 5-on-3 situations. North Pole finished 1-for-7 on the power play, with Sanford doing the honor in the second period.

“A positive-negative about all those power plays,” said West Valley head coach Wayne Sawchuk, “is sometimes you gas your top-end players and if you get nothing for it and it’s kind of hard to fall back on. But, obviously, I’m very excited for our guys and I’m very proud of our guys tonight.”

Henne tied the game at 1 during a two-man advantage at 10:20 of the second period, beating Patriots goalie Phoenix Copley at the right side of the crease with a centering pass from Dylan Blankenship, who finished with three assists.

Sanford, parked in the right circle, redirected in DJ Carnley’s pass from the left circle at 13:51 of the second for 2-1 Patriots lead.

Longoria banged in a rebound of Vance Bridgman’s shot from the slot at 2:29 of the third for a 3-1 Patriots lead before Henne used only a span of 59 seconds to rally the Wolfpack to a 3-3 deadlock.

On a 5-on-3 scenario at 6:01, he scored from the slot with Bolles’ pass from near the left point, and he added the game-tying goal from the right side of the crease at 7:00 of the third.

“He’s been our go-to guy all season and we need Benny to have success for us to have success,” Sawchuk said.

Bolles was looking to pass to linemate Patrick Evans when his delivery deflected off a Patriot’s stick and snuck past Copley at 9:05.

Copley, who had 20 saves to Wilfer’s 23, was pulled for an extra attacker with a minute left in the game, but West Valley persevered.

Lathrop triumphs

Tayler Munson scored a hat trick to give him 101 career points as a sophomore, and Brooks Poe and Alec Hajdukovich had two goals apiece to guide the Malemutes into tonight’s final.

“We’ve got to show up to that game, we’ve got to be ready to go,” Lathrop head coach Shawn Lundgren said of the championship game against West Valley.

Lundgren said that he reminded his players that two years ago Lathrop won the regular-season title but lost to West Valley in the tournament final. The Malemutes came into this year’s tournament with an 8-0 MAC and 20-2 overall record.

Lathrop goalie Taylor Evans stopped seven shots for the shutout and Garrett Cheeseman and Matt Noreen combined for 39 saves for the Crimson Bears, who ended the season at 14-10 overall.