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Eau Claire Memorial takes the Showdown in Titletown

By Bill Berg, 01/24/11, 10:56AM CST

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Saxton Soley shuts out Wausau West

Saxton Soley stood tall, and crouched in his goalie stance, and flopped around a the ice a few times, in leading Eau Claire Memorial to a 2-0 win over Wausau West in the championship game of the Showdown in Titletown on Sunday at the Resch Center in Green Bay.

Austin Priebe was also standing tall in front of the Warriors goal, and through two periods neither of the netminders allowed anything to get behind them. Soley blocked 17 shots in the first period and 8 more in the second, including break-aways and point blank rebound shots. Priebe turned away all 14 shots in the first period and another 12 in the second, which included several very good scoring chances by the Old Abes.

The scoreboard remained empty past the halfway point in the third when the Wausau West emotional roller coaster went from top to bottom in about 15 seconds. The Warriors entered the Old Abes zone and went hard to the net. They had Soley down and to the left of the net when the puck came loose to the right side for what looked like an easy tap-in goal. In desperation Soley threw himself on his back with his left arm outstretched on the ice and reaching for the post. He got it down just in time to corral the puck and get a whistle.

Wausau West was the visiting team, and was required to make their line changes first. They were a little too late in trying to get a fresh pair of defenseman on the ice for the faceoff. The officials chased the new defensemen back to the bench, and kicked the Warriors center out of the faceoff circle for causing the delay. So for this faceoff West did not have the defensemen they wanted on the ice. They did not have the center they wanted to take the draw. And their right wing was out of position – he was taking the draw instead of standing in front of the net.

Eau Claire won the faceoff cleanly back to the their defenseman who circled behind the net and passed the puck up to the forwards, and the Old Abes came up the ice with numbers. Alexander Dahl attacked the Wausau zone on the right wing. He passed the puck across to Michael Kapla on the left side, and both West defensemen moved across to his side. Priebe dropped into his butterfly position and slid across to challenge Kapla, but Kapla instead passed back to Jake Bresser who was the trailer on the play and was driving hard to the right post. Bresser had an easy tap-in to the open net.

Dahl scored a minute and a half later on a controversial goal from the right boards. He fired the puck toward the net and Priebe dropped down in front of where he thought the net was. The puck found a gap between his skate and the post, which for some reason was about 6 inches behind the goal line. He pointed out to the officials that the net wasn’t where it was supposed to be, and they held a conference to determine the validity of the goal. They set the net back in place and decided that the goal should stand. One of them went over to explain their rationale to West Coach Pete Susens. The coach did not seem convinced.

Priebe ended with 36 saves for the game. Soley had 37 saves.