High school hockey: Skyline wins state title

SALT LAKE CITY — Skyline won the 2010 Utah High School Hockey championship on Monday night.

The Eagles were not to be denied by the No. 1 seed in the tournament, Viewmont. After defeating the then-undefeated Vikings to stay alive Saturday, Skyline downed Viewmont for the second time in three nights with a 7-6 overtime victory.

Viewmont, which had an 18-0 record before Saturday's game, did a better job of bottling up Skyline's Dean Wilson. But Wilson, after scoring four goals Saturday, scored a pair in Monday's contest — the second being the game-winner in overtime at the Salt Lake City Sports Complex.

"I had a sore back," said Wilson, "but it was nothing I couldn't play through."

With 57 seconds remaining in the sudden-death overtime, a scrum of players fought in front of the Vikings goal.

"(The puck) bounced off the goalie," said Wilson, "and I shot it and it went in."

He finished the evening with two goals and three assists.

The Eagles began the match just about where they left off Saturday when Chase Vanetti scored the first goal just two minutes into the match.

Wilson scored his first goal and the team's second goal on rather a freak play. With three players flailing away at the puck down in the Skyline end of the ice, Wilson just slapped away at it. The puck bounced down the length of the ice and hopped right over the goalie and into the net.

Just like on Saturday, the Eagles had a 2-0 lead halfway through the first period.

The Vikings did get on the scoreboard late in the first period when the puck bounced around in front of the Skyline goal for what seemed like an eternity until Bremen Acord punched it in.

All kinds of scoring broke loose in the second period.

Viewmont's Kody Rodriguez took off on a breakaway and scored just 19 seconds into the period to tie the score at 2.

Then it looked like a replay as Rodriguez did it again at the 12:26 mark to give the Vikings a 3-2 lead.

At the 11:50 mark, Skyline retaliated when Daniel Brickley pushed one in to make it 3-3.

Chase Vanetti slapped one in while Viewmont was a man down serving penalty time. And at the 7:42 mark, Douglas Newell took off on a breakaway and stretched the lead to 5-3 for Skyline.

But the match was far from over. Kody Rodriguez, who led the Vikings in scoring all year, muscled his man down the right side of the ice and took it in unassisted at 1:45 of the second period and pulled the Vikes within one at 5-4. That was a hat trick for him.

Skyline went two men down to begin the third period, but the Eagles escaped without damage as Joseph Canfield again stopped a barrage of shots.

Viewmont's Sam Kitchen punched one in from the left angle with 1:19 remaining to tie the score and send the match to overtime where Wilson worked his heroics.

"We had the momentum from Saturday," Skyline coach Sam Wilson said. "I just told everybody to keep it going."

The Eagles advance to play in the USA Hockey Nationals in April in Chicago.

e-mail: wjewkes@desnews.com