skip navigation

Poirier Does It Again

By WiPH Staff, 03/04/11, 6:30PM CST

Share

For the second straight year West's Poirier knocks off Eau Claire Memorial in OT

Listen Here to
Our Live Game
Broadcast on
UStream.tv

Download the Mobile App

Get the Mobile viewer for your iPhone, Android, or Windows Phones. Launch the App, then search for "wiph".

In the most exciting game of the tournament, Wausau West got an overtime goal from Robbie Poirier to slide past Eau Claire Memorial 4-3 in the second semifinal Friday night at the Alliant Energy Center.

The Old Abes got on the board first midway through the first while on the power play. Alex Dahl whipped a cross-ice pass to Hunter Scott, and the big forward ripped the puck past West goalie Austin Priebe from the right dot to give ECM a 1-0 lead at 8:54.

Just over five minutes later, West evened the contest on a power play goal of their own.

Brett Ziegel grabbed a rebound and beat ECM's Saxton Soley from the slot to tie the game at one at 13:55. Poirier and Kyle Lee got assists on the play.

Even though the game was tied after one, ECM held a 13-7 shot edge and looked like they were on the way to avenging last year's double-overtime loss to West in the semifinal game.

West had different ideas and scored at 1:21 of the second to take a 2-1 lead. Tom Kilgore scored on the power play with a nice back-hander from the low left side. Ziegel and Lee tallied helpers on the play.

ECM tied it up late in the period when Brady Bollinger scored on a rebound at 11:14 with assists from Mark Munger and Charlie Grasskamp.

ECM had a 13-11 shot edged as the period ended with each team at two.

Poirier scored with 1:50 left in the third to give the West crowd a huge lift as the Warriors led 3-2. Lee's pass to the slot led to the score.

The Warriors crowd was soon deflated. The Old Abes pulled Soley for an extra attacker and it paid dividends as Josh Linn was given credit for a tip on a shot from the top of the right circle. Kapla and Brady Burzynski earned helpers on the tying goal with just 31 seconds left.

In the extra period, Poirier knocked home a rebound just 1:06 into the OT session to give West the victory. Garret Clemment and Seth Wage earned helpers on the play.

Priebe stopped 35 of 38 shots for West while Soley had 26 saves for ECM.

Quarterfinal Results

Preview by Bill Berg Jr

 It'll be a rematch of arguably the two top teams in the state Friday as the Eau Claire Memorial Old Abes take on the Wausau West Warriors in the second semifinal of the 2011 WIAA Boys High School Hockey State Tournament.

The Old Abes are working on the rare in-state unbeaten season this year, having gone 24-1 in the regular season, with their only loss coming to New Ulm, MN.
 
West will be attempting to avenge two losses to the Old Abes this season. The first by a 6-3 score, and the second 2-0.  
 
The first meeting between these two was tied 3-3 early in the third period when West gave Memorial a power play, and Memorial capitalized. 
 
Memorial tacked on two more and took the victory.  In their second meeting, the teams played one of the best regular season games of the year, but Memorial came away with the 2-0 victory.
 
Bergler was at that game for Wisconsin Prep Hockey, and he felt like Wausau West had more, and better, scoring chances, but the difference in the game was Saxton Soley.
 
Soley is the 2010-2011 winner of the Wisconsin Hockey Coaches Association/American Family Insurance Player of the Year award, and leads the state in both save percentage and goals against average.
 
Soley was also Team Wisconsin's starting goalie in the Upper Midwest High School Elite League. Memorial's Alexander Dahl was also a member of that team, along with Kyle Lee and Garret Clemment of Wausau West.
 
The game is also a rematch of last year's semifinal when West edged Memorial in double overtime to advance to the Championship game, ultimatley won by University School.

Tag(s): Home  Eau Claire Memorial  Wausau West  Game Summaries  WiPH Exclusives 

Share