JANESVILLE—Cap City’s Brynn Brinkmeier took a pass from Lilly Wagner and surveyed the scene from the top of the offensive zone just seconds into the overtime period.
After a few moments the sophomore whirled her stick back and fired. The puck flew through the legs of a Rock County defender and past several other players before striking the back of the net.
And in one fell swoop, the Cougars had ended the Fury’s season in a 2-1 WIAA girls ice hockey sectional semifinal victory at the Janesville Ice Arena on Tuesday night.
“It was a hard battle the whole game,” Rock County head coach Luke Steurer said. “The girls worked their butts off all game, and Cap City just got a lucky bounce in the end. It’s an unfortunate way to end it.”
The fifth-seeded Cougars, a co-op consisting of DeForest, Madison East, Madison La Follette, Sun Prairie East, Sun Prairie West, and Waunakee, took immediate control of the puck to start the extra period and scored after just 59 second had elapsed.
But Steurer doesn’t want this finish mudding the impact his strong senior class has had on the program. As sophomores they went 7-15-2 and went 9-15 last season before a much more successful final year.
“These seniors are the core and the heart of the team for us,” the head coach said. “We had a couple rough years of rebuilding, but they stuck around instead of going somewhere else. A lot of firsts that we’ve had this year with them — being conference champions, the stats and the winning record — it started with those seniors who are just a tremendous group.”
The top-seeded Fury (16-9) held possession of the puck more often than not through the first period but a pair of shots from Sophia Young along with tries from Anna Cole, Lily Clark and Ava Kilgora all went unsuccessful with Cap City goalie Sofia Martinelli holding strong.
Rock County still found paygold before the frame was up when a scramble in front of the net resulted in senior Emma Kilgora poking the puck in for a goal off an assist from Macy Murphy with just under two minutes to go.
“The first period was a great one for us,” said Steurer after his squad outshot Cap City on goals 10-4. “We were controlling the puck and getting a lot of shots on them. We didn’t let them have it much or get it into the offensive zone. It was a great start, which doesn’t always happen for us.”
The Fury once again dominated play for the beginning of the second period, and Sophia Ferrera had a strong shot blocked.
“I always go back to our second line with Ally Cole, Anna Cole and Sophia,” Steurer said. “Just how hard they hustle out there — it’s not a line that’s going to put up a ton of points, but they can go out here and compete against any line.”
A volley of shots were stopped as Martinelli killed a power play but Beloit Memorial senior goalie Jillian Traver matched her with several big blocks of her own after a Fury penalty.
“I can’t say enough about Jillian,” Steurer said. “She’s the last line of defense and stands on her head every game. This is the best year she’s had.”
Unfortunately for Rock County, shortly after the Cougars’ power play ended junior Caroline Cutrano, who now leads Cap City with nine goals, got her hard-hit shot past Traver to make it one-all with 4:32 left in the period.
“They snuck someone on that back side where we had everybody on the puck side and had a kind of a free shot on the back door,” Steurer said.
A Fury three-on-one breakaway was snuffed out by Martinelli late and the two squads went to the final period knotted up.
The third period was about as back-and-forth as one gets in playoff hockey with both teams fighting for their season. Cap City’s Teegan Davis found a nice one-on-two opportunity early but was stopped by Traver. Both Emma and Ava Kilgora provided some nice tries around the net but nothing could find its way through.
Traver made 10 saves and her defenders did a solid job warding off any quality shots in the final frame to help send it to overtime.
“We struggled a little bit to get control of the puck in our defensive zone,” Steurer said. “They had it down there a little bit longer than we wanted them to.”
Traver finished with 20 saves while Martinelli ended with 30.
Cap City will now face second-seeded Middleton in the sectional finals on Saturday at 7:45 p.m. at the Janesville Ice Arena.
• BOXSCORE:
CAP CITY COUGARS 2, ROCK COUNTY FURY 1 (OT)
Cap City 0 1 0 1 — 2
Rock Co. Fury 1 0 0 0 — 1
FIRST PERIOD: RC, Emma Kligora (Macy Murphy), 1:57.
SECOND PERIOD: CC, Cutrano (Davis), 4:32.
OVERTIME:CC, Brinkmeier (Wagner, Dull), 7:01.
Saves: RC (Jillian Traver) 4-9-7-0-20. CC (Sofia Martinell) 9-11-10-0-30. Penalties: RC 2, CC 1.
Most Popular
Comments / 0