Photo by Michael R. Gulledge, STLhighschoolsports.com

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

ST. PETERS • Opportunity knocked. The De Smet hockey team answered.

Facing elimination in the Mid-States Club Hockey Challenge Cup semifinals against four-time defending champion CBC, the Spartans forced a winner-take-all mini-game with a 5-2 win in Game 2 at the Rec-Plex on Saturday night.

Daniel Kinzel’s first postseason goal midway through the mini-game proved to be the game-winner as De Smet eliminated the Cadets with a 2-0 win.

De Smet (19-6-4) will play St. Louis U. High (27-1-0) in the Challenge Cup championship game at Scottrade Center at 8 p.m. March 13.

“We’ve been working for this all four years and it finally comes to this and we didn’t’ miss out on it at all,” De Smet senior Nickolaus Thorpe said. “The team took advantage of the opportunity.”

Kinzel found himself alone in front of the CBC net with 5:45 left in the mini-game and finished on a perfect feed from Jack Estes to give De Smet a 1-0 lead.

“I was just in the right spot at the right time,” Kinzel said. “I’ve been playing with Estes all year and we have great chemistry.”

Thorpe’s empty-netter with 13 seconds left in the mini-game clinched it for the Spartans and capped a three-goal night for the team’s captain.

“It was a feeling of relief that we’re finally going,” Thorpe said.

CBC will not play for the Mid-States championship for the first time since 2001.

“They got that first one and they smelled blood,” CBC coach John Jost said. “They’ve got a lot of seniors that wanted to keep playing and we didn’t have an answer.”

De Smet jumped CBC (21-5-3) for two early goals in game two and never looked back in a 5-2 win that set up the mini-game.

Estes and Thorpe each scored twice for the Spartans, while Stephen Randazzo had the other. Owen Benben had two assists and William Oliver made 24 saves.

Eric Brown and Van Kraemer each scored unassisted goals for CBC. Jack Caruso had 20 saves.

Estes gave the Spartans a 1-0 lead, going top shelf just 1 minute and 23 seconds into the first period.

“We went to work,” Estes said. “We came with the mindset all week that we weren’t going to lose.”

Randazzo made it 2-0 off a backhand from a perfectly centered pass by Benben from behind the CBC net. The goal at 5:07 of the first prompted CBC to call its lone timeout.

“This is my fourth year here playing De Smet varsity and this is the first time I’ve beaten CBC in a regular-season game and in the playoffs,” Randazzo said. “I love this team.”

Estes made it 3-0 at 1:26 of the second period, scoring on a breakaway created by a Kenneth Gibson outlet pass.

Brown got CBC on the board 53 seconds later with an unassisted goal to cut the Spartans’ lead to 3-1.

Thorpe got that one back for De Smet, scoring directly off of a faceoff deep in the CBC zone at 4:45 of the second.

Thorpe struck again at 6:35, splitting two Cadets defensemen and chipping the puck into the net as he fell to the ice to make it 5-1 for De Smet.

Kraemer scored an unassisted power play goal to cut CBC’s deficit to three with 3:52 left in the second.

Oliver preserved the De Smet lead with a pair of saves on a CBC first period power play and a slick glove save on an Anthony Andrews wrist shot in the second. 

“The boys put in the work all year long to get us to this point and they deserved it they earned it,” De Smet coach Christopher Durso said. “It just shows that hard work pays off.”