Entering the Sept. 27 game against the Francis Parker Lancers. Captains Robbie Gray (12) and David Carr (11) said they expected a close match, but a win nonetheless. With a final score of 7-6, they improved their record to 6-9. However, the team was missing two starters entering the game, which changed their initial plans.
“Our plan was no matter what, we were gonna make sure that that #3 doesn’t shoot,” Zajac said. “He only ended up shooting once or twice. Especially at the end of the game where we completely locked him down.”
Philip Zajac (10) had the responsibility of filling in for Isaac Baloun (12) who was suspended after getting a red card in the previous game. Baloun, who is the second-leading scorer for the team, typically takes a large percentage of the shots as a whole. Zajac said he doesn’t find shooting one of his main strengths as a player, but his offense proved much stronger than he had expected, scoring a goal in the first half.
At the beginning of the game, the Wolverines were down 1-0, but quickly answered with two goals from Gray and Luke Christopher (10) to make the score 2-1 with three minutes left in the first quarter. After a foul on the Lancers, the Wolverines had a six-on-five and the opportunity to capitalize on the possession with about a minute left. The Wolverines came up short, which Gray attributed to the other team’s players sitting in front of the goal facing the player with the ball in the two-meter area. When the player with the ball is in the two-meter, all the other players can enter the zone. The other defense pressed the attackers and made it very difficult to get passes through.
“[The Lancers] played a different six-on-five defense where they just cheat out on everybody,” Gray said. “Meaning they would go to defend players that they would normally drop off of. I think that confused us and we didn’t adapt very well with that.”
To begin the second quarter, Christopher quickly scored two goals with the help of Zajac on the left side. But with just less than a minute left in the second quarter, the Lancers scored to make the score 4-2 at the halfway point.
To open the scoring in the second half, the Lancers scored two transition goals, which evened the score at four each. Then each team scored one more goal to end the third quarter at 5-5. In between the quarters, Westview came together and reminded themselves of their prepared strategy.
“We were just trying to stick to the plan, and we knew that some of those goals could be easily preventable,” Zajac said. “So we just tried to really hammer down minor details and then stick to the plan.”
Just 50 seconds after the fourth quarter began, Gray scored his second goal of the game to give Westview a one-goal lead. After many possessions of great defending and shot prevention from both sides, the Lancers scored a goal with less than two minutes left, off of a turnover by the Wolverines. With a few quick possessions by both teams, the time was counting down and both coaches used a timeout within 40 seconds of the other, both possessions ending in turnovers. With 30 seconds left, in the final Wolverines timeout, coach Cameron Rath drew up a play for what could possibly be the last possession for them.
“He explained the play to us, which is where we were going to take [Christopher] and put him on a mismatch right in front of the [goal],” Zajac said. “Then we were going to clear pretty much everyone to the other side of the pool so we could just pass it to him and he could score, and it worked.”
With just 19 seconds left in the game, Christopher completed his three-goal game with a game winner, beating the goalie to his near post in the 7-6 win. Captains Gray and Carr both thought the team did a great job.
“I’m really proud of the team that we were able to do so well, even missing two starters,” Gray said. “I think it just shows the depth that we have on this team.”
