Wolverine girls hockey wins state title

Third state title in six years

by Than Acuff

The West Elk Wolverines U19 girls hockey team won five games in a row to take the Mountain States Girls Hockey League state title. It was their third title in the past six years and sweet revenge after falling in the state finals last year.

Head coach GJ Santelli admits it was a bit of a surprise to him but believes it was no surprise to his players. At the start of the season, Santelli sounded a bit unsure of what lay ahead for his team. He knew he had the coaching staff with Molly Cannon and Katie Brawner. He also knew he had the talent on his team.

He just didn’t know if he had enough players to make it through an entire season and then all the way to the title game. Fact is, the bench was short and injuries can creep up on a team over the course of a long season of hockey and take their toll.

Fortunately, the team stayed healthy enough and managed to pull up a couple of players from the U14 program to provide reinforcements, finishing the regular season in first place.

But the playoffs are the crux, as teams must play four games over 48 hours, five if they make it to the finals.

“If we didn’t have those extra players during the tournament, it would have been difficult,” says Santelli.

They opened the post-season Friday, February 24 skating to a 5-1 win over New Mexico, led by a hat trick from Izzie Dethloff. The Wolverines jumped out to a 2-1 lead in the first period and tacked on a third goal during a power play in the opening minutes of the second period when Sophie Hall scored off an assist from Kendl Santelli. The finishing touch came just 10 seconds later when Dethloff finished her hat trick scoring off an assist by Sierra D’Aquila.

“Quick strike, game over,” says Santelli. “That really ended it.”

Later that period Kathryn Guerrieri added a fifth goal to the Wolverines’ total and they cruised through the third and final period to the 5-1 win.

The Wolverines returned to the ice Saturday for a rematch with Telluride. Just a week before, Telluride handed the Wolverines their first and only loss of the season and the Wolverines were ramped up to prove who really was the better team.

“They wanted that game and it wasn’t too hard to talk them up for it,” says Santelli. “They were ready and they were flying.”

Telluride did strike first as the Wolverines suffered a handful of early penalties but the early goal merely ignited the Wolverines as they went on to score the next four goals for the 4-1 win. Four different players scored, started by Jansen Lucas, one of the U14 additions, with a short-handed goal. Guerrieri tacked on the next strike at the end of the first, Bryar Robbins scored in the second period and Kendl capped the win with a goal midway through the third period.

“The girls woke up and played solid hockey,” says Santelli.

Later that day the Wolverines suited up for the third game of the post-season and cruised to a 5-0 shutout over Steamboat. The Wolverines set the tone early, rattling off four goals in the first period with Hall, Hailey Shrieves, Guerrieri and Dethloff all scoring and D’Aquila adding the fifth goal in the second period.

“We played really well that game, working the puck around and taking advantage of good shots,” says Santelli.

The Wolverines faced their toughest challenge of the weekend on Sunday morning when they squared off against Vail. Crested Butte needed a tie or a win to punch their ticket to the finals, while the Vail Mountaineers were in a win or go home situation.

As a result, Vail took control of the game from the opening face-off setting the pace almost the entire game and took a 1-0 lead in the fifth minute of the first, outshooting the Wolverines 13-3 in the first period alone.

“They’re young and they’re fast and they owned us for quite a while,” says Santelli.

The Wolverines got their skates underneath them in the second period to match Vail’s pace and tied the game in the ninth minute when Kendl found Hall open with a pass and Hall slipped it through the five hole.

Eventually the game came down to goaltending as Anika Anderson stood on her head in net to maintain the tie late into the third period.

“Vail just came after us with shot after shot after shot, and Anika was just off the charts,” says Santelli.

In a win or go home situation, Vail was forced to pull their goalie with a minute left and the move ended up backfiring as Guerrieri scored two empty net goals in a span of 20 seconds for the 3-1 Wolverines win.

“We’d been working on taking empty net shots all season,” says Santelli.

The win sent the Wolverines to the championship game to face long-time rival Aspen. The two teams have met in the finals a number of times before with the games coming down to overtime more often than not. This time, the Wolverines went to work early and maintained their effort for all three periods.

They opened the scoring 46 seconds into the game as D’Aquila scored off an assist from Jaden Cavarra. Dethloff then scored her fifth goal of the weekend in the seventh minute off a pass from Guerrieri for a 2-0 lead.

“I think that kind of shocked them a bit,” says Santelli.

The two teams skated through a scoreless second period as Anderson and Aspen’s goalie both provided a number of crucial saves until Lauren Shrieves scored early in the third period and the Wolverines skated to the 3-0 win and the state title.

“We just outplayed them and I think that shocked everybody,” says Santelli. “They played their best game of the season their final game. They still had more in the tank and just wore the other team out.”

With the scoring spread throughout the team all weekend long and the defense on point, the difference ultimately came down to goaltending as Anderson registered two shutouts over the weekend and allowed just three goals over five games.

“It was by far the best team effort all around—we were getting banged up all weekend,” says Santelli. “Teams ran into a hot goalie and it just happened to be our goalie.”

Santelli will now step down from the head coaching position handing the reins over to Cannon. He feels that while the team is losing three star seniors, the talent pool is deep heading into the next few years.

“They’re going to be a great team,” says Santelli.