BEARS TAKE IAC WITH DOMINATING WIN OVER RP 7-2

The Prep team must have reviewed the Spaulding Coach’s explanation of how his Cavaliers tied the Bears; for the Hoyas of Rockville Pike tried to clog the blue line-to-blue line ice to try to defeat the Landon speed. If the Spaulding tie had anything to do with that strategy (not my interpretation of that game), the Bears beat it and beat the RP team to take sole possession of the IAC Hockey championship.

Landon plays a team game; waves of forwards (4 lines deep) and three pairs of defensemen plus two exceptional goalies make it difficult for any opponent or any strategy to defeat the Bears.

Tonight, the home team took the lead (and held it for the remaining 40 minutes), when Captain Sam Anas took a pass from Isaac Porter at 10:20 to take a Landon 1 RP 0 lead. The margin grew to 2-0 when Matt Opsahl  converted a pass from Sam at 6:13. The penalty free period was also notable for the minutes the Bears maintained possession in their O zone. This was largely attributable to the wings and D men doing a great job of forechecking and cutting off the offensive thrusts of the RP ice men. The vistors must have been annoyed that (in numerical order) Messrs. Connor Meike, Chris Javens, Pearce Minshall, Nick Malone, Max Greenwald and Mike Anderson kept denying them the puck, intercepting passes and riding their O thrusts into a corner. On the occasions that an RP player had a look at the net, Alex Joyce stopped their shots (by periods, #1 saves– 6/19/13).

END OF FIRST PERIOD LANDON 2 RP 0

The second period was a display of the Landon team offense. The RP players were just getting warmed up on the ice when frosh Joe Snively  scored a pretty goal off of two dazzling passes from Assistant Captain Teddy Wellington and Matt Potolicchio at 13:38– Bears 3 Hoyas 0. Landon demonstrated their Power Play prowess on aDavid Lackner goal with a helper to Sam, Bears 4 Hoyas 0 @ 11:41. A Teddy Wellington “dangled” the RP defense to increase the Bear lead to 5-0 at 8:01 0f the second. RP got on the scoreboard at 4:22, but any momentum that the goal may have generated was quashed with a Sam Anas unassisted goal at 3:05. SoG for the period– L17  RP 9

END OF 2ND PERIOD LANDON 6 RP 1

The last minute 15 minute period was an extraordinary display of puck control by Landon. The Bears maintained possession for almost the entire segment and the primary RP offensive tactics seemed to be 5 long passes that failed to connect with their designated cherry picker and resulted in face offs back in the L O zone. Sam Anas got his hat trick off a nice pass from linemate Christian Meike at 6:43- Bears 7 RP 1. The visitors got a meaningless goal with 19.1 seconds remaining. The announcement of this score could not be heard due to the vociferous Bear fans who were chanting—we got Russell… we got Coster.. we got Minshall…we got Anas and we got Wellington. The Bear Moms were more pointed (and less maternal in their cheer) WE DON’T SHARE, WE DON’T SHARE (referring to the Bears’ exclusive claim to the IAC title winning all 4 of their IAC regular season game and 2-0 in the tournament).

FINAL LANDON 7 RP2

While this was a fantastic IAC victory, there remains the challenge of MAPHL which begins next Tuesday 2/22 with a match up against Bullis.

GO BEARS!!!!