George Ferguson Havre Daily News sports editor gferguson@havredailynews.com
Just when it looked like the Havre Ice Hawks’ high school hockey team was playing almost flawlessly, the defending state champion Great Falls Americans narrowly exploited the one area in which the Ice Hawks had trouble. On Sunday afternoon in the championship game of the MAHA State High School Hockey Tournament at the Havre Ice Dome, Great Falls scored two quick goals in the second period to put the Ice Hawks in a hole they just couldn’t dig themselves out of. And although Havre looked like the team to beat all weekend, the Americans pitched a dominating 3-0 shutout to win their second straight state championship. “I think we came out a little flat today,” Havre head coach Dave Sheppard said. “For whatever reason, I don’t know. But in the first period, we just didn’t seem to be on our game and the puck just didn’t seem to bounce our way. Not to take anything away from Great Falls because I think they just outplayed us today, but we just didn’t play as well as we did the first two days.” Even though it looked like the Ice Hawks struck the first blow on a goal that wasn’t allowed in the first period, they didn’t look like the team that thumped Helena and Miles City earlier in the tournament, and they didn’t look like the offensive juggernaut that found a way to forge a dramatic tie with Bozeman in pool play on Friday night. Penalties were what kept Havre from looking like that team in Sunday’s championship game. Havre had overcome penalty problems all weekend, but 11:27 into the first period of the championship game, the Ice Hawks gave up a powerplay goal by Brennan Meek to fall behind 1-0. Havre did kill two penalties in the period to only trail 1-0, but it would be a lead that Great Falls would make stick as Meek’s goal turned out to be the gamewinner. In the second period, the Americans found the net again at the 7:32 mark when Thomas Fairall scored a rare unassisted, shorthanded goal that upped the lead to 2-0. And two minutes later, the Americans seemingly salted the game away when they got their second power-play goal of the game. Skating 5-on-3, Great Falls forward Joshua French took a pass from Meek and one-timed a shot over Havre goalie David Zentmire to put the Americans ahead for good, 3-0. “It’s tough to give up that much against a really good team,” Sheppard said. “So when we had to go 5-on-3 against them, that was really tough to defend. In a game like that, penalties are big and they made us pay for them today.” Havre skated hard in the third period and didn’t stop firing until the final horn sounded, but the Ice Hawks were never able to crack Great Falls goalie Daniel Olinger, who stopped 25 Havre shots. Interestingly, the shots on goal were almost dead even as Zentmire, who was brilliant all weekend between the pipes, saved 21-of-24 shots. Havre reached the state championship game by way of going 1-0-1 in pool play on Friday. The Ice Hawks beat the Helena Bighorns 4-2 on Friday morning as Kyle Miller scored the game-winning goal. In the victory, Havre also got two goals from Todd Roe and one from Ryan Armstrong. Havre’s closest game of the weekend came in the night cap on Friday when the Ice Hawks had to forge a 4-4 tie with Bozeman in order to advance into the semifinals. After skating to a scoreless tie in the first period, Havre and Bozeman combined for five goals in the second. Havre struck first when Tyler Boyce scored on an assist from Roe. But Bozeman retaliated when Taylor Devine, who would go on to record a hat trick, scored a power-play goal to tie the game at 1-1. Devine scored again six minutes later, this time on an unassisted goal that gave the Icedogs a 2-1 lead. But Havre, which had already killed almost eight penalty minutes, had a thunderous answer at the end of the second period. The Ice Hawks scored twice in the final 30 seconds to lead 3-2. The first goal came by way of Mason Sheppard, and then Boyce found the net just seconds later on an assist from Sheppard as the partisan Havre crowd erupted into a frenzy. As exciting as the second period was, the enthusiasm would be dulled some early in the final period as Bozeman tied the game just :28 in. Then, the Icedogs took the lead when Devine scored his third goal at the 8:58 mark. But Havre wasn’t done as Sheppard scored the goal that vaulted Havre into the semifinals at the 11:39 mark. Sheppard’s goal was an unassisted breakaway goal that gave Havre the point it needed to safely move on. And in the semifinals against Miles City on Saturday night, Havre’s offense was truly a machine as the Ice Hawks scored three times in the second period en route to a 4-2 defeat of the Generals. Boyce struck first for the Ice Hawks just 3:36 into the second stanza when he scored on an assist from Roe. Then, less than three minutes later, Sheppard scored another unassisted goal, skating end-toend and burning Miles City goalie Brenna Huff to give the Ice Hawks a 2-0 lead. And for good measure, Boyce tacked on the game-winner on an assist from Ice Hawks’ captain Will Schilling at the 8:44 mark. Roe started the third period with a nifty goal on an assist from Boyce to push the lead to 4-0, and although Havre gave up a pair of goals in the final period, the outcome was never in doubt as Zentmire saved 16-of-18 shots, and Havre’s defense squelched penalties and a multitude of Miles City scoring chances to advance to the championship game. After the loss to Great Falls, Havre’s season ended with a divisional championship, a state runner-up finish and a 20- win season. And with most of the Ice Hawks’ current roster returning next year, Sheppard is optimistic about the future. “This was a really good season,” he said. “We’ve been playing hockey for five months and it’s tough to get to this point and not get it done. But overall, it was a great year, and I’m really looking forward to next season already. We only lose two skaters and we have some good kids coming up, so we should be a very good team again next year.”
