Centerville 1, Northview 0
With inexperience in goal from first-year netminder Ken Devine, the Elks entered this game as legitimate underdogs against a seeded Northview team playing for a berth in the State Final Four on their home ice in Sylvania.
Thanks to a total team effort, Centerville limited Northview’s chances and turned the game into a defensive battle. While the Elks often looked like the better team, the contest remained scoreless almost the entire way. But with just over four minutes to go, Centerville finally broke through when senior Tyson Swartz raced up the ice to beat Northview defenseman Josh Fielding and goalie Todd Trego.*
In an intense, nerve-wracking finish, a spirited crowd saw the Elks hold on to shut out Northview on their own rink while crushing their hopes of reaching the Final Four. For Centerville, it was one of the biggest wins in program history.
*In an interesting connection, Swartz served as an instructor with Trego and Fielding the previous summer at the Kettering Recreation Center’s youth hockey camp. Devine was also there, but as a player learning how to play goal for the first time.
Ken Remembers: Can you tell I was still a newbie here? Looking again at how slow I moved around the crease, it still feels semi-miraculous that we escaped with a W (and a shutout, no less!). But my vulnerability seemed to spur the team to step up and keep Northview in check, holding them to just 10 shots after two periods.
When you watch the video, you can hear the same Northview parent yelling “SHOOT! SHOOT!” almost the entire game, and for good reason. I’m sure their team and fans were frustrated that they couldn’t get a single puck past a shaky-looking goaltender.
This game introduced me to what an exciting playoff atmosphere with a lot on the line is like. Being so new to the situation, I didn’t really know what to expect coming into it. I was hoping for the best, but wasn’t real confident that we’d come out with a win under these circumstances. But the good thing about having low expectations was that it set me up for an unforgettable first-time experience.
While we’d go on to have more postgame pile-ups, I’ll never forget how this first one felt: the quickly evaporating nerves at the sound of the final buzzer, the triumphant realization that we’d just won a game no one expected us to, and the mass of bodies I collapsed under just before feeling the crushing, suffocating weight of the entire team on top of me. No doubt, it’s the best kind of pain anyone can experience.
It was wild, exhilarating, chaotic, and surreal. It’s the kind of feeling that any athlete would be lucky enough to experience just once. And for us, it was just the beginning.
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