This year with a new coach, Adam Sacchetti, for our E1 Eagles team; it was quite the turnaround. In the DPL last year, E1 went 2-3-2, this year they went 5-1-1 finishing tied for 2nd place in the league. They would face the Export Rangers in the quarterfinal round of the playoffs. In game one they defeated them 5-3, even though the game was cut short due to a bench clearing brawl. As game two approached, there was a question about how the teams would fair with each other after game one’s incident, but it ended up being a fairly clean and tightly played game, the Eagles knocked the Rangers out with a 4-3 win to advance to the semifinals.
In the semifinals, the Eagles faced Kristall, whom they tied 4-4 during the regular season. Game one was extremely hard fought and evenly matched. Coach made it known that game one was a must win game. With only 9 skaters and stellar play from goaltender Ryan Wehrman, the Eagles came up huge defensively to win a nail bitter 3-2. You could say that the Eagles shocked Kristall. Game two was just two days later and the mindset was clear – that was to go for the throat and take them out. It was another back and forth game. The Eagles dominated the first two periods going up 4-1 and thinking, “We might actually do this!” Kristall made a push back though; came back and tied the game with less than two minutes left in the game. The game would go to a shootout, which made sense seeing as how these two teams were so evenly matched. The Eagles sent Shane Saum, Brandon Tudball and Jimmy Koehler to shoot. Saum misfired unfortunately, Tudball juked the Kristall goaltender and scored and Jimmy never got the chance to shoot because Ryan came up huge and stopped all three of Kristall’s shooters. The Eagles knocked out the high powered offense of Kristall 5-4 in a shootout.
Now it was on to the DPL Division 1 Championship game against the Heddesheim Flames who have been to the finals the last three years. The Eagles were very much the underdogs in this game and there wasn’t one person anywhere that thought any different. Unfortunately, E1 goalie Ryan Werhman was deployed last minute which was a major blow to the Eagles going into the finals. Coach decided to go with Jeff Lewis, who had been skating out all season, to put in between the pipes for the championship. “I just had a feeling about putting him in net for this game”, Sacchetti said. With a massive support system from the Eagles there in the stands, the game started with the eagles scoring first within the first minute of the game. The first period ended with the score 1-1. The play was back and forth and surprisingly the Eagles were stopping the Heddesheim attack and not even allowing many shots – likewise Jeff Lewis was coming up huge in net stopping key shots he was facing. The scoring opened up for both teams as the 2nd period ended with the score being 6-4 in the Eagles favor. The Eagles were winning this game both on the score board and on the ice. That is a lot to say for only having 11 skaters as opposed to Heddesheim’s 18 skaters! Unfortunately, the shortage of players for the Eagles was taking a toll on them as the 3rd period was winding down. The Eagles weren’t able to hold on to the lead as the Heddesheim Flames went on to win 9-6. There were no regrets for the Eagles though! The effort that these 11 players put into this game and left out there on the ice was something the Eagles organization can be extremely proud of. Everyone held their heads up. And the support was heard after the game from the fans in the crowd who were chanting “Eagles” over and over. It made the players feel good about what they gave during the incredible endurance test they faced. The Eagles won 75% of that game, but again, there wasn’t enough gas in the tank, but understandably so. Jeff Lewis came to play this game as a goaltender and he did an outstanding job filling in. All and all, the Eagles gave it one hell of a ride and did a great job to say the least.
