The Wildcats display big hearts in battling back, but St. Edward’s early surge helps show the way in a 5-3 victory by the Eagles at the Gilmour Ice Arena on Sunday.

****Saint Ignatius head junior varsity hockey coach Drew Vilinsky was kind enough to share his analysis on Sunday’s JV City Championship game with the corner.

Here is Drew’s breakdown on another chapter in the Saint Ignatius-St. Edward rivalry.

St. Edward carried the play early, scoring a goal in the first minute (Will Armbruster) and another(Colin Magreal) before five minutes had elapsed.

Brian Russell emerged behind the Eagle defense to bring us within one. St. Edward's heavy pressure created another goal before the end of the period (Colin Mitchell). A combination of solid fore checking and power plays led St. Edward to outshoot us, 17-3, in the first period. We had four penalties in the first period and St. Edward had one.

In the second period, two things changed the flow of the game. First, we started to respond to the
physical fight St. Ed's brought by concentrating on the body. Second, our conditioning that we were growing stronger permitted us to apply some pressure, which led to a power play and a power play goal by Cam Gerard.

Later in the period we hemmed five Eagles in their zone for two minutes while changing our forwards out three times. We had two penalties and six shots in the second period. St. Edward had four penalties and three shots.

A nice short-handed fore check to start the third period by St. Edward (Anthony Latina) resulted in a 4-2 lead for the Eagles.

Pete Hyland's speed and a solid pass from Jimmy Grisanti brought us to within one with nine minutes to go. St. Edward did a good job sacrificing its bodies so as to block shots.

With five minutes to go, a jam play at the Eagle net appeared to result in a goal. Seven players
including Eagle goaltender Warren Hill were piled up in the crease. The official ruled no goal.

There were two more similar jam plays, with bodies piled up in front of the net, on our part in the last two minutes. Hill stood his ground on both.

Colin Magreal rounded out the scoring with an empty netter with one second remaining. We had one penalty and eight shots in the third period. St. Edward had three penalties and seven shots.

Their penalty kill was good. Our power play struggled to create opportunities against them.

They brought a really good physical fight to us. It took our lads some time, but we responded well. Jared Stepka and Peter Hyland stood out for us with both speed and physical play.

We played St. Edward earlier in the tournament and lost 2-1 in a three-on-three overtime. We beat them, 4-3, in overtime on January 4 and have one more potential meeting with the Eagles in
either the final four or the championship of the JV State Championship Tournament.

NOTE: The junior varsity state tournament is February 22-24 at Winterhurst.

Coach Vilinsky added that the JV Wildcats, now 17-6-2, were city runners-up last year, losing to
Gilmour Academy in double overtime, 4-3. He also pointed out that Saint Ignatius’ jayvee program will be competing in the state tournament for the first time in nine years.

Yes, the future looks very bright as Coach Vilinsky is doing another marvelous job in the development process for Coach Pat O'Rourke's varsity program.