Cheboygan hockey battles downstate, but falls to Romeo, Anchor Bay
MACOMB COUNTY – Taking on a pair of bigger schools over the weekend, the Cheboygan Chiefs hockey team more than held its own on the road.
Unfortunately for the Chiefs, they were unable to take control in each of the third periods they played, while their opponents did.
As a result, the Chiefs suffered a 5-2 defeat to Romeo on Saturday and a narrow 2-1 loss to Anchor Bay on Friday.
In Saturday’s matchup, the Chiefs (7-14), who trailed 1-0 for most of the first period, tied things up when Warren Farver scored a goal with just eight seconds remaining before the intermission. Broden Powell and Oliver Walvaag were credited with assists for the Chiefs.
The Chiefs took their first lead of the game at 2-1 after Gavin Rose scored with 10:17 remaining in the second period. Assisting on the goal were Luke Karsten and Warren Farver. The Chiefs maintained their one-goal advantage going into the second intermission.
However, the Bulldogs responded in a big way in the third, scoring consecutive power play goals to take a 3-2 lead midway through the period. The Bulldogs added two more goals down the stretch to seal the win.
Goaltender Sawyer Graham stopped 31 shots for the Chiefs.
On the Romeo side, goalie Landon D’Angelo was a thorn in Cheboygan’s side, denying 34 of the 36 shots he faced. In the second period alone, he stopped 21 of 22 Cheboygan shots on goal.
“(D’Angelo) was good, also, he made some huge saves in the second period, especially,” said Cheboygan coach Craig Coxe. “We had 22 shots on them in the second period, and we had a five-on-three (power play) for two minutes, and he made some huge saves. Again, I’ve talked to coaches about their goaltending and they said the same thing. They said, ‘The guy that’s playing against you guys is the better of the two they have,’ and he played really well. We had 22 shots in the second period and we only got one goal on him.”
Mason Giza scored a game-high two goals, including the go-ahead goal with 8:24 left in the third, to fuel the Romeo offensive attack. Cullen Jones, Collin Martin and Nick Wiers also scored for the Bulldogs.
On Friday evening, the Chiefs opened up the scoring when Rose made it 1-0 on a goal with 5:49 left in the first period. However, the Tars equalized just over two minutes later when Darren Jones scored.
After both teams went scoreless in the second, Aiden French’s goal early in the third gave the Tars a 2-1 lead they wouldn’t relinquish. The Chiefs pressed for an equalizer in the final minutes, but they suffered a tough break when they had a potential game-tying goal disallowed late in the contest.
“We outshot them, we played three solid periods of hockey, and unfortunately at the end of the game, we had our goalie pulled and they disallowed a goal,” Coxe said. “My players had the best look at it, because they’re on the bench and they told me, ‘Coach, that went in,’ and they disallowed it, so we ended up not going to overtime or a shootout, whatever it was going to be, and we ended up losing the game 2-1.”
Like Saturday’s matchup, Cheboygan ran into a red-hot goaltender on Friday against Anchor Bay’s Luke Christensen, who made several big stops throughout the night.
“On Friday, we came out and played really good, we played three solid periods of hockey,” Coxe said. “We ran into a hot goaltender and we knew that going in. We had talked to some coaches who played against that team, and one of the things they said was their goaltending is outstanding, and (Christensen) was. He played really well.”
Blaine Baldwin and Karsten each added an assist for the Chiefs. Goalie Chaston Rose started in net.
Despite the defeat, Coxe lauded his players, who delivered a solid display against a strong downstate opponent.
“I told the boys after the game, ‘It’s just going to happen in a lot of sports where you’re going to outplay a team and sometimes you lose,’ and unfortunately we ended up playing a team that we outplayed, and their goalie won the game for them,” Coxe said. “I’m not upset with my kids, I think they played a great game, and unfortunately we ended up on the wrong side of the win column.”
For Coxe, he believes the quality competition his team faced will only help as the postseason approaches.
“This is one of the reasons I put games like this on the schedule, especially near the end of the season, so we can play against competition like that,” Coxe said. “It gets us prepared for the playoffs, and on Saturday we played two really solid periods of hockey against (Romeo). The first period and second period, we outshot them both periods. We outshot them 22-12 in the second period. We played really well, but we were up 2-1 going into the third period, and we didn’t play the third period like we did in the first and second periods, and then ended up getting four goals scored on us, because I think we sat back a little bit and we just didn’t play like we did in the first two periods."
After almost a month of playing road games, Cheboygan will finish off its regular season with a four-game homestand, starting with a second showcase event on Friday and Saturday, Feb. 10-11. The Chiefs will host Gladwin at 8 p.m. on Friday night and then take on Mid-Michigan Raptors on Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m.
“It’s going to be nice, it’ll be nice for our fans, and it’ll be nice for our families not to have to keep driving all over the place,” Coxe said. “Unfortunately when I made the schedule last year, this is just the way it worked out. You can’t always get what you want. Unfortunately we didn’t have as many home games this year as we normally would. Up north we don’t have the same amount of teams that they have down south. Somebody down south isn’t going to drive four hours up just for one hockey game. It’s difficult getting teams to come up here and play, and unfortunately that’s just the way it worked out this year.”
This article originally appeared on Cheboygan Daily Tribune: Cheboygan hockey battles downstate, but falls to Romeo, Anchor Bay
