That’s where the Spirit’s inaugural NA3EHL junior hockey season will continue after the team punched its ticket to the East Division championship round. L/A completed a sweep of its contentious best-of-three semifinal series on Saturday night, dispatching the New England Stars, 3-1, at Androscoggin Bank Colisee.
Linder Kenyon, Dylan Vrees and Clay Janowiak scored for the second-seeded Spirit. After allowing Jake Latham’s goal on the Stars’ initial shot of the game, 72 seconds in, Claes Endre was brilliant in goal with 21 saves.
“They’re young men. We’ve had a lot of teachable moments,” L/A coach Rod Simmons said. “We’re happy with the outcome. We’ll enjoy it for a short time and then get back at it. We’re on the road.”
L/A will travel to Falmouth, Mass., for a best-of-three set with the top-seeded Cape Cod Islanders. Game 1 is Friday at 4 p.m., with Game 2 set for Saturday at 12:20 p.m. Game 3, if necessary, would face off at 11:40 a.m. Sunday.
The first period served up several reminders of the semifinal series opener.
New England repeated its hot start and was first to light the lamp, and the Stars wasted even less time gaining that advantage this time. Latham redirected Tim Paige’s service from the point.
“They jumped up on us there, and I thought, ‘Here we go.’ But we answered the call,” Simmons said. ‘We did the simple things right. We didn’t make it easy on ourselves, necessarily, but I think we did the little things. Just a little bit more old-time hockey.”
Just over two minutes later, the physical tenor also packed an eerily similar punch. Hunter McTague’s check from behind launched Colby Siering into the corner boards behind Stars’ goalie Robbie Campbell.
It drew both a two-minute minor and a 10-minute misconduct, and as was the case Friday night — when L/A scored on three of its first four power plays — the Spirit made the Stars pay in a hurry.
Kenyon, who notched only one goal for L/A during the regular season, scored his second in as many nights. Austin Siering and Brett Bittner set up his rip from just inside the blue line at 4:13.
“We had to answer back,” Kenyon said. “Luckily we got that power play, and I was able to put it home.”
“Great goal, real nice shot, and he did it for us (Friday) night, too,” Simmons added. “He just played a real solid, keep-it-simple game.”
Although he was down and mostly motionless for two minutes and required help from two teammates to skate off the ice, Colby Siering was back on the bench by the end of the period and played regular shifts the remainder of the game.
“That was a big goal,” Vrees said. “After that it started to run again for us. We got the momentum going.”
L/A killed its lone penalty of the stanza with hefty help from Endre, who denied Cam Webster from the slot with a kick save and also stymied Paige. As that disadvantage expired, Vrees, riding the momentum of a four-point night in the opener, put the Spirit in front with a defensive gem.
Vrees swiped the puck from Ian McNamara just inside the neutral zone, turned on the afterburners as McNamara gave chase and froze Campbell with a head fake before scoring with ease at 7:28.
“I was just trying to read him as best I could, force him to do what I wanted him to do,” Vrees said. “Luckily he popped it up and I was able to go in and score.”
New England took five penalties in the period. L/A failed to capitalize on a brief 5-on-3.
Endre protected the lead with a resounding glove save against Kyle Weiss, who had received a game misconduct for contact to Daniel Heffernan’s head that knocked him out of Friday’s game and left him unavailable for the encore.
Those penalties traditionally would carry a one-game suspension. According to a source with the Spirit, the Stars won an appeal Saturday afternoon, and Weiss was allowed to play. He was roundly booed by L/A fans when introduced as a starter before the game.
“The Stars are a team that work hard,” Simmons said. “They don’t do anything great. They just work hard and go hard to the net. They don’t quit.”
L/A gave itself a two-goal comfort zone with 3:02 remaining in the second period.
Austin Siering fired from beyond the right circle. Campbell made the initial stop but appeared to lose track of the puck, which lingered perilously in front of his skates.
Siering converged from one edge and Janowiak raced in from the other. Janowiak poked it in.
Moments earlier, the house lights went down, the strobe lights started to kick in and the crowd briefly and prematurely celebrated what looked like Vrees’ second goal of the night.
When Campbell rose from the ice, he showed that the puck was trapped beneath his pad, shy of the goal line. The officials conferred and waved off the play.
Endre came up big during a pair of penalty kills in the middle stanza, turning away two shots by Steve Crocker in a bang-bang sequence to silence the second.
“Tonight on our penalty kill (6-for-6) again we were good,” Vrees said. “We just followed the system. It works. Everybody gets fired up every now and then, but the coaches do a good job of reeling us back in.”
L/A’s defense, given a boost by the return of Walker Hamilton and Mark Ferullo from suspension in the absence of Thomas Puetz (ankle), again did a splendid job of keeping New England from connecting the dots and unloading from close range.
“That was the plan, to finish checks, get pucks out, keep it deep,” Kenyon said. “We executed well and got away with the win.”
Campbell made another stop inches from the line in the third period, this time denying Bittner on a breakaway. He finished with 23 saves.
koakes@sunjournal.com
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