Hockey: Worthington Kilbourne Wolves expect to make leap

It took one quick decision to make the Worthington Kilbourne hockey program a varsity team again. One season later, the Wolves believe they’re contenders for a league title.

Kilbourne went 16-18-0-1 overall and 4-11-0-1 in the CHC-Blue Division a year ago, fifth behind champion Olentangy (11-5) in its first varsity season since 2014-15.

“I have to admit, I was a bit surprised,” fifth-year coach Bryan Cummings said. “I expected we’d win a couple of league games if we were lucky. We ended up being much better than we expected and I think that was just the hard work the players put in.”

Senior defenseman Nick Siler credits team cohesion for the early success.

“Our coaches have done a really good job of making sure that everyone understands what they need to be doing and how we’re going to get to where we need to be,” Siler said. “The players have done a really good job of responding.”

When Cummings made the choice to move up to varsity, it was pretty simple. He told the CHC and, just like that, it was done.

“We pretty much had the same team we had the year before,” Cummings said. “Talking to some other coaches and seeing where some other teams were, I finally just made the decision to go ahead and move up to varsity last year.”

How did the players feel about the move?

“Overall, it went really well,” senior forward Riley Geeding said. “When (Cummings) made the decision, I wasn’t 100 percent on board. I thought it would help us and it did, but I didn’t think we were going to do as well as we did.”

“There was a lot of skepticism,” Siler said. “There just wasn’t a ton of confidence. We didn’t know how things were going to go or what things were going to look like.”

Kilbourne returns all but three players from last year’s team, including top scorers Simon Abbott (37 goals, 43 assists) and Luke Walton (38 goals, 63 assists), both junior forwards, as well as Siler and fellow senior Will Gundel anchoring the defense.

“We’re going to see what we can do and really compete for a division title,” Cummings said. “I think we have a good chance at winning the lower division of the CBJ Cup and I think we’ll make a push into the (district) tournament. We’ll see how far we get.”

Building a varsity program began in Cummings’ first season.

“One of the first things I had done was starting up a youth program,” he said. “One of the issues I found when I took a look at where we were as a program was that there’s this gap between youth hockey and high school hockey. There’s not communication with the younger players. High school teams don’t really know who’s coming up a lot of times. So, I started a youth hockey program called the Future Hockey Wolves.”

It means the Wolves won’t lose their varsity status any time soon.

“So, (now) we know just how many players are playing hockey at every grade level,” Cummings said. “It’s been a tremendous help for us and our numbers are continuing to grow and grow.

“We’ve got a pretty big eighth grade incoming class next year and seventh grade is a pretty good class, and then we have some huge classes upcoming like our fifth-grade class has 18 kids that play hockey. That’s almost an entire team in one grade. Not only will we be able to maintain varsity status, but we’ll have a j.v. team here in a couple of years.”

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KILBOURNE

•Coach: Bryan Cummings, fifth season

•Top players: Simon Abbott, Joey Delashmutt, Riley Geeding, Will Gundel, Patrick Jeans, Owen Shaffer, Nick Siler and Luke Walton

•Key losses: Elijah Alpern, Andrew Bickell and Kieran Cummings

•Last season: 16-18-0-1 overall

•2020-21 CHC-Blue standings: Olentangy (22, 11-5), Watterson (20, 10-6), Gahanna (18, 9-7), Columbus Academy (13, 6-10-0-1), Kilbourne (9, 4-11-0-1), DeSales (6, 3-14), Dublin Scioto (0, 0-16)

•2021 postseason: Lost to Oxford Talawanda 11-1 in second round of district tournament

•Outlook: A year after Kilbourne returned to the ranks of varsity hockey, there are bigger goals on the horizon. Cummings believes he’s got the talent to compete for a league championship, compete for the Blue Jackets Cup title in the lower division and make a run in the postseason.

The Wolves return two top scorers in junior forwards Abbott (37 goals, 43 assists) and Walton (38 goals, 25 assists). Abbott had a plus-minus of 19 and Walton was plus-12.

Kilbourne also has a strong returning defense anchored by seniors Gundel (8 goals, 19 assists) and Siler (9 goals, 13 assists) in front Shaffer, a junior goalie who had 510 saves.

•Quotable: “We’re really expecting to do some big things this year. We only lost three (players to graduation). We have a very good senior and junior class this year. (Abbott) was one of those guys that really bought into the program when we were still a j.v. team. He’s an incredible hockey player. Luke has physically developed; he’s gotten so much bigger and stronger. He’s just a force out there.” – Cummings

THOMAS

•Coach: Bill McGill, seventh season

•Top players: Hayden Carrier, Elliott Hartwick, Brady Kuhl, Alex Piero, Ethan Ruffing, Collin Stegemiller, Cam Stoller and R.J. Stoller

•Key losses: Jack Coe, Evan Kendall, Carson Smith and Chance Young

•Last season: 16-13-0-1 overall

•CHC-White standings: Cincinnati Moeller (29, 14-1-1), Olentangy Berlin (25, 12-3-1), Thomas (19, 9-6-0-1), Cincinnati St. Xavier (17, 7-6-2-1), Dublin Coffman (16, 8-8), Springboro (10, 4-10-1-1)

•2021 postseason: Def. DeSales 11-1; def. Dublin Jerome 5-1; lost to St. Charles 3-0 in district quarterfinal

•Outlook: This may be a bit of a rebuilding year in the sense that Thomas features eight players who are freshmen or sophomores. So, the Cardinals need production out of their eight seniors.

One of those seniors, forward R.J. Stoller was first-team all-league after leading Thomas with 18 assists. He also scored 11 goals. Other top returning seniors include Stegemiller (15 goals, 10 assists), Carrier (7 goals, 6 assists) and Kuhl (1 goal, 6 assists) at forward and Piero (4 goals, 14 assists), a defenseman. But Stegemiller is out for two months with a broken arm.

Hartwick, a junior goalie, was honorable mention all-league last year, getting the decision in every game with 822 saves and a 2.07 goals-against average.

Ruffing, a junior, will anchor the defense along with Piero and sophomore Cam Stoller.

The Cardinals have to replace Kendall, who was first-team all-league, and Young, who was honorable mention all-league. Kendall led the Cardinals with 30 points (13 goals, 17 assists) and Young had 10 assists.

•Quotable: “We lost eight seniors from last year, so we’re kind of in a rebuilding mode, although we have eight seniors this year as well. A lot of the key pieces are younger. Our strength is definitely our goaltender, junior Elliott Hartwick. He’s one of the best goalies, if not the best goalie, in the league.” – McGill

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