Saints come up just short in Cougar Cup

The St. Charles East Hockey Club ran into a hot goalie and yielded the go-ahead goal midway through the final period on Sunday night in the do-or-die Game 3 of the 2009 Illinois Suburban Hockey League Cougar Cup Championship.

The Saints weren't able to roar back, managing only 6 shots on the goal in the third period as Lyons Township took home its second championship in the past three years with a 2-1 victory.

"We outshot them but it's the ones that go into the net that count," St. Charles East coach George Albrecht said. "They're a great team and deserved to win it today. We played them four times this year, and we won twice and they won twice. It's been neck and neck with those guys all season."

For the only time in the series, Lyons Township scored first when Anthony Appleyard used a crowd around the net to obstruct goalie Skyler McInnis and blast the puck past him at 10:17 of the first period.

It remained 1-0 until Saturday's hero, Michael Jimenez, scored in his third consecutive game.

Assisted by Jordan Hayes, the senior took a shot from about 15 feet out, which eluded goalie Will Berry to knot the score at 1-1 with 5:06 remaining in the middle period.

After Saturday's overtime victory in Game 2, a couple of Saints players and Albrecht stressed the importance of staying out of the penalty box, especially Jimenez and all-stater Josh Lorusso.

The Saints did an excellent job of staying on the ice, as they were only penalized twice for a total of four minutes.

But great teams always seem to take advantage when a team is down, and the Lions capitalized.

Ian White's unassisted power-play goal from near the blue line at 7:29 of the final period gave Lyons Township the lead for good.

"I just got the puck at the point and saw a screen in front from center Tim Appleyard," White said.

"I thought he tipped it at first, but he said 'No, it was all you.' It was awesome. This is best hockey moment of my life right now."

The Saints had a few shots on goal later, including Lorusso's attempt with eight seconds remaining, but Berry denied each of them. Berry finished with 24 saves.

"Will was phenomenal tonight," Lyons Township coach Doug Bosse said. "He came up big in a 2-1 game, more than you can ask for in a game like tonight."

Anthony Appleyard said one of the keys to the game was containing Lorusso, who was held scoreless.

"We just tried to match lines like we did all series," he said. "We knew we pretty much had the advantage if we had our top three guys out there against him."

Although the Saints came up short of a championship, Albrecht said they had a great overall season. The Saints finished 16-3-1 in the ISHL regular season.

"We improved a lot from where we were at the beginning of the season," he said. "We're losing 8 seniors and some tremendous ones, but we've got a lot of young's kids that played in important games that we're looking forward to have coming back."

As for the experience of playing in a best-of-three championship, it's something these players will likely remember for a long time.

"We had 500 people out there for both sides rooting their teams on," Albrecht said.

"How can you ask for anything more that that? It's great high school hockey that was fun to be a part of."