Wolves stop Rockford cold

E-mail this story

Print this story

Share

CRYSTAL LAKE – Prairie Ridge, which has thrived on its defense all season, was at its stingiest Saturday night.

The Wolves put forth a remarkable effort, particularly on defense, to stop the Rockford Icemen, 2-0, in their game at the Crystal Ice House.

Prairie Ridge’s defense was so good that goalie Buck Martin was required to make only 15 saves. And that was against the AHAI Blackhawk Cup Combined State Tournament defending champion, a team ranked No. 3 in Illinois by myhockeyrankings.com, a website for youth and high school hockey.

“Our goaltender [Martin] shut them down,” forward Pat Biewald said. “The defense did a great job keeping them to the outside. It’s stick on puck always [for all players]. They’re a very [good] offensive team, to shut them out really opens our eyes about how good our defense can be.”

The Wolves (29-15-4) got all they needed in the second period when Kyle Buresch and Michael Crepeau scored 1:07 apart. Shortly after that, the game took a turn that resulted in ill will the rest of the game.

Wolves defenseman Ryan Kenny hit Icemen defenseman Thomas Breitfuss, who suffered a knee injury on the play. Rockford coach Tim Mattila still was upset after the game about losing Breitfuss.

“We hit four crossbars. As soon as they took our top player out, an All-State defenseman, that really helped them,” Mattila said. “He injured his MCL and it ended his season. It’s a nightmare, and they thought it was funny.”

Each side had a different version of what happened. Rockford thought Kenny had stuck out his knee, while Wolves coach Rick Rewiako thought Kenny’s skate caught Breitfuss’ skate, causing the injury. Kenny was assessed a 5-minute major penalty, which Prairie Ridge killed off.

“[Kenny] stuck out his knee,” Mattila said. “That should not be allowed in hockey. Our season will be affected by that.”

Rewiako thought it was just an aggressive hit.

“Ryan went for the open-ice hit,” he said. “At no time did he stick he leg out. By no means is that anything we teach. He was looking for a game-changing hit. It was unintentional, a result of hard hockey.”

Kenny appeared to be a marked man after that. Eventually, after a rumble behind Prairie Ridge’s net in the final minute, he and Rockford’s Reno Murphy were sent off for penalties. Kenny also was assessed a game misconduct.

The finish overshadowed the strong defensive performance by Prairie Ridge.

“It all starts with Buck [Martin], who was lights out,” Rewiako said. “He did a great job with rebound control and the defense was good driving them outside and giving them bad shooting angles.”

Rockford is 16-5-6 with two losses and a tie against Prairie Ridge, which is No. 10 in the myhockeyrankings.com list.

“Buck was kicking out shots where we could get them,” defenseman Nick Samuels said. “We did a good job of clearing out their forwards. We have a bunch of confidence heading into the [Blackhawk Cup Red Division State Tournament] for sure.”