ORIGINAL ARTICLE

ST. PETERS • Duchesne sophomore Troy Haeffner couldn’t have envisioned the night he had in his wildest dreams.

Haeffner recorded his first hat trick of the season and added two assists to power Duchesne to a 7-3 win over Parkway West in Game 2 of the Mid-States Wickenheiser Cup semifinals on Friday at the Rec-Plex.

The Pioneers (19-5-3), who won Game 1 6-3 on Feb. 21, advanced to play either Lafayette (17-7-2) or Summit (17-6-2) in the championship game on March 13 at the Enterprise Center .

“This is one of the best games I’ve ever had,” said Haeffner, who scored 12 goals in the regular season, but has five in the postseason. “This is a big game. It’s been a dream of mine since I was a little kid, trying to go the state finals.”

Vincent Conti scored twice and had an assist, Trevor Begley had a goal and an assist and Derek Cagle also scored for Duchesne.

Austin Meers had three assists, Nolan Kelsey had two assists and Jack Boschert made 15 saves for the Pioneers.

James Sherstoff scored twice and Logan Wesolowski added a goal for Parkway West (14-12-1). Ty Waddell had two assists and Luke Leahy made 16 saves.

Haeffner’s power play goal gave Duchesne a 1-0 lead with 4 minutes, 52 seconds left in the first period. Haeffner found a hole from an angle to start his barrage.

“Something clicked,” Haeffner said. “Right then and there I knew something was up and that’s when it started.”

Cagle made it 2-0 a couple minutes later with a breakaway goal. A Meers pass sprung him and Cagle went left side with a wrister.

Haeffner struck again with 50 seconds left in the first, scoring directly off a Meers faceoff win for a 3-0 advantage.

“It’s awesome,” Duchesne coach Joe Rupp said. “Troy’s one of those depth guys. He plays well game in and game out and it’s nice to see it work out on the score sheet.”

Begley made it 4-0 with one second left in the first off a perfectly executed breakout with Meers, who won another faceoff to start it.

“It’s a chemistry we have as a line,” Haeffner said of the faceoff-oriented offense. “We just know each other and what to do. He (Meers) just tells you what he thinks he’s going to do and you go with it.”

Haeffner got his third goal midway through the second period after his shot trickled in behind Leahy to make it 5-0.

Conti made it 6-0 just 35 seconds into the third period, but Wesolowski answered for West 11 seconds later.

Conti, who has 59 goals this season, doesn’t mind sharing the spotlight with Haeffner.

“For the future of Duchesne hockey, it looks really great coming from a sophomore,” Conti said. “As a senior you can’t do everything, you’ve’ got to let the little kids do it too.”

Sherstoff scored for the Longhorns with 6:34 left to cut the deficit to 6-2.

Conti’s second of the game with 5:07 left ended the comeback attempt. Sherstoff’s late power play goal for West capped the scoring.

“We’re really proud of how the boys played,” West coach Brian Waddell said. “We were the underdog all year long. This is the furthest that West has gotten in two decades so there’s nothing to be upset about, nothing to hold your head down about. We just had a bad first period. It just happened to be in the last game.”