A three goal third period led to a 5-3 victory for Madison Edgewood  over Eau Claire Memorial in the semi-final round of the Showdown in Titletown on Saturday afternoon. Each team scored once in the first period and once in the second, setting up the exciting final stanza.


The Old Abes drew first blood on a 5-3 power play. Michael Kapla  passed from his spot on the point down to Matthew Knapp at the left of the net. Knapp froze the goalie and passed the puck across to Brady Burzynski, who put it over a sliding Connor Curliss just three minutes into the game.

The Crusaders tied the score with 2:46 left in the first with a flurry of shots at Killy Kitzmann. The Memorial tender was able to stop the first two shots, but AJ Gullickson followed his own rebound to score. Assists went to Tom Richards and Jake Dragoo.

Eau Claire had a 12 to 8 shot advantage in the first period, and seemed to dominate the first twelve minutes of play, but Edgewood rallied for the final few minutes to tie things up. That momentum carried over into the second period as the Crusaders came out strong and hard to start the second. Edgewood took the lead on a shot from the point by Zach Brown that was deflected halfway to the net by Dragoo, over Kitzmann’s shoulder at just over a minute in. By the midpoint of the second period, Edgewood had taken over the game and the lead in shots, 17-16.

Late in the period, the Crusaders drew a string of penalties for being a little too aggressive in defense of their goalie when he covered pucks. The Old Abes were able to take advantage of a 5 on 3 power play by working the puck around and drawing the
Edgewood defenders deeper in the zone and closing in around the net. Kapla got a pass at the top of the slot and fired a wrist shot over Curliss’ shoulder.

That late rally did not carry over for the Old Abes, as Edgewood took control of the game for good in the third period. It started on a power play with Gullickson and Taylor brown passing the puck back and forth behind the net, forcing Kitzmann to bounce from side to side in the net. When they got him looking over his right shoulder, Brown passed to Gullickson who had slid just out in front of the goal line on the other side. AJ tucked the puck into the corner of the net for a 3-2 Edgewood lead just 1:19 in.

Two minutes later, the Crusades scored a similar power play goal when Zach Zanoya scored from the same spot as Gullickson when Zach got a rebound off the back boards for a 4-2 lead. After scoring Zanoya was nailed in the back and sent crashing head-first into the boards behind the net. A few of his team mates stepped in to administer some frontier justice, and when things settled down, ECM had lost Nathan Pientok  to a Game DQ, and Edgewood had been assessed a minor for roughing, leading to 4 on 4 hockey for two minutes, followed by three minutes of Edgewood power play.

Both teams seemed out of sorts for a few minutes after that, and the defenses got sloppy. In the ensuing 4 x 4, Taylor Brown got behind the ECM defense and deked the Kitzmann for a 5-2 lead. Minutes later Knapp chased down an icing attempt to take the puck in and deke the Edgewood goalie to make the final score 5-3.

Curliss ended up with 30 saves, and Kitzmann made 26.