Saturday, March 11, 2023
By Scott Hennen
shennen@cbussports.com

Down two goals midway through the first period in a state semifinal, the Olentangy Liberty hockey team looked to be headed home like all but one central Ohio team have done in the past.

Eric Bauermeister wasn’t going to let that happen. The senior forward spoke up in the huddle and the second-ranked Patriots rallied for three goals before the.end of the first en route to a 4-3 victory over top-ranked Cleveland St. Ignatius on March 11 at Nationwide Arena.

The Patriots (38-1-1) advance to play Hunting Valley University School in the championship at 12 p.m. May 12. The fourth-ranked Preppers (29-8-1) defeated Sylvania Southview 4-0 in their semifinal.

“I think when we went down 2-0, I went out to the face off between these two (senior defensemen Vinny Rengel and Jacob Kempa) and said, “It starts now. We can do it. We can’t go down from here. We’re still in it,’” Bauermeister said. “We went out, had a solid first shift and threw it up to the net and got a power play (goal) out of it. That really brought the bench to life.”

St Ignatius (24-7-3) looked to take control with two quick goals in the opening period. Dario Piazza intercepted a Liberty pass from behind the goal for an unassisted goal just 3 minutes, 30 seconds into the game. Cal Basile added a Wildcats’ goal with 8:44 left in the first off a pass from Johnny Rodgers.

“Keep everything simple,” Rengel said. “Once we try to do too much, that’s when our game falls short. Once we move the puck fast, get it deep, forecheck hard and get shots it’s hard to beat us.”

Liberty could have wilted but scored three times in less than two minutes late in the first. Jack Hamilton scored a power-play goal with assists from Jake Struck and Jacob Kempa with 3:33 left in the period.

Struck scored with 2:04 left in the first off a pass from Carson Reynolds, and 26 seconds later Charlie Hughes hit the net off an Andrew Leonard assist to put the Patriots ahead 3-2.

“We couldn’t get ahead of ourselves,” Hughes said. “(Being down) 2-0 is hard to come back from but we know what our offense is capable of. Dump in and just go.”

St. Ignatius answered with a short-handed goal 1:01 into the second with a Zach Baker goal and Piazza assist. Liberty then took the lead with 3:28 left in the period on a score by Leonard with Hughes and Brian Savage getting assists.

“They have guys who can fly out there and they came out and took it to us for long stretches of the game, which honestly doesn’t happen much to us,” said St. Ignatius coach Pat O’Rourke, whose program had reached its 12th state semifinal and earned seven state titles. “We gave it our best and pulled out every trick we could think of to get the game equalized and we couldn’t do it.”

Liberty entered the game 0-3 in state semifinals. The Patriots lost to Toledo St. Francis 9-4 in 2011, Sylvania Northview 4-2 in 2013 and again to St. Francis 8-2 in 2017.

The lone central Ohio program to win a state semifinal was Dublin Jerome, defeating University School 3-2 in 2019. St. Ignatius won the final 7-2.

“I think any other team would have panicked, but these guys were wondering what to do, but I think we knew we were going to get the next one,” Liberty coach Kevin Alexander said. “I didn’t want to go down three goals to them. I knew we could rally and when we made it 2-1, I knew we were back. That goal was probably the game-changer.”

Liberty outshot the Wildcats 32-26 and its goalie Robbie Cook logged 23 saves. St Ignatius goalie Nolan Francis had 28 saves.

“I was not sure if they could get away with playing two lines,” O’Rourke said. “I’m not sure what they do over there whether it’s running marathons or what, but they were good enough to do it.

“Our challenge to (the Patriots) was to play three lines and three sets of Ds and see if they could get through 45 minutes. And they did.”

Liberty now faces University School, which has 16 state semifinal appearances and won state championships in 2000 and 2003. The Preppers were runner up in 2016, 2004 and 2002.

“When Charlie hugged me on the ice, he said, ‘We’re not done with this,’” Alexander said. “These kids don’t have trouble with confidence. They’re a cocky group, but that’s what makes us good. They won’t go in under-confident.”