Hockey: Strong third period leads Liberty past Upper Arlington
Saturday, January 27, 2024
By Scott Gerfen
sgerfen@cbussports.com
Olentangy Liberty’s Jake Struck shoots against Upper Arlington on Jan. 27 at Chiller North. Photo: John Hulkenberg
A change of scenery might’ve been just what the Olentangy Liberty hockey team needed in a back-and-forth game against Upper Arlington Saturday — or at least some familiar scenery.
When part of the protective glass surrounding rink 1 at Chiller North shattered during play, the teams were forced to move to another rink at the facility. Not long after, forward Jake Struck’s power-play goal broke a 3-3 tie with 6 minutes, 4 seconds left.
From there, the Patriots added three more scores to finish off the Golden Bears 7-3 and improve to 11-1 (23 points), remaining atop the Capital Hockey Conference-Red Division standings ahead of St. Charles (10-2-1, 22 points).
Olentangy Liberty’s Alex Thorne (left) and Upper Arlington’s Madden Herndon collide Jan. 27 at Chiller North. Photo: John Hulkenberg
“We’ve been practicing on this ice all year, so I think we kind of felt at home,” said Struck, whose other goal gave Liberty a 3-2 lead with 5:28 left in the second period. “We kept it going … and we were able to put them in the net when there’s no goalie.”
Along with grabbing the lead in the third period, the Patriots needed to kill off a 5-on-3 penalty.
“We’ve got to find a way to score there,” said UA coach Craig Hagkull, whose team dropped to 5-4-2 in the CHC-Red. “The last couple of games we played them, I didn’t think we played very hard — we didn’t compete with them. I thought we did for two-thirds of this game, but they were much better than us.”
The Bears scored the only goal in the first period when Jason Davis found the net on a breakaway with 6:06 left.
Olentangy Liberty’s Carter Randle shoots against Upper Arlington on Jan. 27 at Chiller North. Photo: John Hulkenberg
Mason Herdon’s rebound goal made it 2-2 with 9:35 left in the second period, and Connor Hagkull cleaned up the rebound with a power-play goal with 3:26 left in the second to make it 3-3.
Andrew Leonard and Brian Savage also scored for the Patriots, and Michael Greco added two goals in the final minute, one of them an empty-netter.
The victory extended Liberty’s win streak to six league games. It last lost to Olentangy Berlin, 3-2 in overtime on Dec. 30, which coach Kevin Alexander said was his team’s “low point.”
“Right after that, we had a team meeting and talked about playing as a team,” Struck said. “After that, we went up to Cleveland and started competing against some of the best teams in the state. We’ve been having success ever since, and we’re playing a system that’s been working.”
Upper Arlington’s Carter Shockley moves with the puck against Olentangy Liberty on Jan. 27 at Chiller North. Photo: John Hulkenberg