Medina’s club team wanted to hit the ice for practice Feb. 7 at Strongsville. There was just one problem with that theory — Gilmour and Lake Catholic weren’t done yet in their Cleveland Cup quarterfinal that was headed for a second overtime.
And thankfully for the Lancers, Matt Mangel and John Treppo weren’t done, either.
Mangel forced extra hockey with a goal with six seconds left in regulation, and Treppo lit the lamp with 2 minutes, 4 seconds remaining in double OT, as the Lancers overcame a season-best performance by the Cougars for a 3-2 win.
Gilmour (23-7-3) will take on Walsh Jesuit, a 7-3 winner over Padua, in a Cleveland Cup semifinal Feb. 9, also at Strongsville.
It was a marathon to be sure, but the Lancers ran through the tape.
“I said to the boys that we’re a team — we’ve been playing this kind of hockey all year long,” Gilmour coach John Malloy said. “So I think if you win games, 9-0 or 9-2 or 7-2, and then all of a sudden you’re in a tight dogfight, it’s a new experience.
“So for us to be in that situation — we had one other time where we’ve pulled the goalie and scored this year. So we knew we could do it. That’s a tough thing — we’ve had many other times where we’ve gotten scored on, so it was nice to have that. The kids fought, and I give Lake all the credit in the world. They did exactly what they needed to do.”
Malloy pulled goaltender Payton Wetzel for an extra skater in the waning seconds down, 2-1. Dominic Casamatta snapped a wrister in front. Lake goaltender Patrick Kristo, who had an outstanding 46-save evening, made the initial save, but Mangel got his stick down to bury the rebound.
Then, tied at 2 amid 4-on-4 hockey in double OT, Treppo walked in from the left circle and put away a wrister to send the Gates Mills faithful home happy — as well as his teammates toward the boards in the neutral zone to celebrate with him.
“Lake Catholic just kept lining up flat (on faceoffs) in their defensive zone,” Treppo said. “So Coach was telling me the whole game just to go forward and look for Mangel on the back door or go to the net myself. So I won the faceoff, saw an open lane and just put it up top.”
Scoreless after two periods, Lake (9-21) nearly saw through what would have been its signature victory of the winter with a valiant effort. Jacob Schmitt opened the scoring at 5:30 of the third, slotting a redirect while falling down off a Cade Walnsch shot from high in the zone.
Mangel tied it at 1 at 7:59 with a rebound on a short-handed opportunity.
Walnsch struck to give the Cougars a 2-1 lead with 4:57 left with a quality wrister top corner and stickside from the left circle.
Lake fought to see it through, but Mangel had other ideas before Treppo’s heroics in OT.
“Incredibly proud,” Cougars coach Justin Vance said. “You see the guys day in and day out in practice, and you know they have it in them. And I was talking with the staff on the bench, and we looked at each other and said somewhere in the middle of overtime, ‘This is fun.’ To see a team literally lay it on the line the way they did with a short bench, it tells us that we know we have a team.
“And if you want to look at a silver lining, we haven’t peaked yet.”
Don’t miss
>> Chris Lillstrung’s postgame analysis
>> Full audio interviews with Malloy, Treppo and Vance