continued its defense of the Colorado high school hockey title on Friday night at Magness Arena, cruising to a 4-0 win over to earn a spot in Monday night’s championship.
Kyle Nelson provided the first goal, on a power play, with 11:48 to play in the first period, and Michael Baer added another power play goal late in the second period.
Rowan Barnes then iced the game with his breakaway goal with 2:05 to play in the third before Regis Jesuit scored again on an empty net with less than a minute to play. Goalie Dillon Whalen and the Raiders defense took care of business at their end of the ice to earn the team’s seventh shutout this season.
“Our team took a look at the style of play that Resurrection Christian plays, which is really hard working—they finish a lot of checks, they bump, they knock you out of the way and they try to capitalize on loose pucks and mistakes their opponents make,” Regis Jesuit coach Dan Woodley said. “So our game plan was to try to stay away from chaos and to try to stay controlled.”
The Cougars, the Peak Conference champions, were the lone non-Foothill Conference team left in the bracket. Resurrection was limited in its chances in front of the net, and could not cash in on its numerous power play opportunities over the final two periods, including a 5-3 advantage midway through the third.
“They had a great opportunity to score, and Whalen made a great pad save and then a glove save directly after that to knock it behind the net,” Woodley said. “That would have made it 2-1 at that point and it probably would have been a really hectic game from there on in.”
No. 1 Regis Jesuit (20-1) faces No. 2 Monarch on Monday at 7 p.m. in the title game at Magness, while No. 4 Resurrection Christian (18-4) closed out the best season in program history.
