CBC Hockey Falls Short in Title Game

For the second consecutive season, the top-seeded CBC hockey team lost in the Challenge Cup championship game.

After their hearbreaking 5-4 loss to De Smet in the Challenge Cup finals last season, the Cadets bounced back with another dominant season, only to fall 7-3 to Francis Howell Central at the Scottrade Center on Tuesday night.

“It’s been awhile since we had been down and been in that situation,” CBC head coach John Jost said. “The effort was there, it just seemed like every time they got a break the other way it was in our net.”

It was a night of firsts, meanwhile, for the Francis Howell Central hockey team on Tuesday.

For starters, the Spartans were the first team from St. Charles County to reach the Mid-States Club Hockey Association’s Challenge Cup championship game.

“To be the first team from the St. Charles area to get into this game and then to win it, it’s tough for a public school to get to this point and then to win it 7-3, wow,” Spartans coach Tom Mueller said.

“When you beat a team like CBC, you’ve beaten the best. That’s a hell of program over there. They have great talent, outstanding coaching and they’re a class group. When you beat them, you know that you’ve done a good job.”

The win for Howell Central was a contrast to the Spartans' 6-1 loss to CBC on Dec. 17.

“Wow, what an effort. What an effort by all of our people,” Mueller said. “Our goaltender stood on his head and made great saves all night long, and the defense didn’t give up too many second chances.”

Howell Central goaltender Zach Grabowski was virtually unstoppable against the Cadets as he stopped 45 shots for a 93.8 save percentage. Grabowski was also named the game’s Most Valuable Player for his effort between the pipes.

“I just don’t like to lose,” Grabowski said. “We knew that they could come back and beat us, so we just had to keep playing our game. You’ve got to give a lot of respect to them, because they come into nearly every season as the team to beat, but not this game.”

Howell Central’s Kyle Novak scored three goals and recorded one assist against the Cadets. One interesting note about Novak was that he went to CBC as a freshman and the chants of “CBC dropout” rained down from the Cadet faithful.

“I went there freshman year so I knew all of them,” Novak said. “So it felt good to come back with the kids that I’ve been going to school with my entire career and then to beat them finally. It feels good knowing that in my last high school game we played great and won the title for the first St. Charles County team.”

The Spartans found themselves up against the boards early in the game when Chase Rey and Jalen Krogman were in the penalty box creating a 5-on-3 scenario for CBC. But the Cadets came away with nothing, which only fired up the Howell Central bench.

“I think that when we came out and killed that 5-on-3 penalty, and we actually were giving them too many shots, that really turned the tide and gave our guys confidence,” Mueller said.

“We were thinking 'hey, these guys are mortal'. So we went about our business getting things done, and we capitalized on the few mistakes that they made.”

The Cadets took a 1-0 lead with 7:37 left to play in the first half on a goal by Jack Ryan. But CBC’s lead wouldn’t last very long as the Spartans received back-to-back goals from Chase Rey with 6:13 and 5:22 to play in the first period. Novak and John Mueller would each record an assist on Rey’s goals.

Howell Central then received goals from Adam Otten with 3:07 to play in the first period, as well as Novak with 1:31 to go in the period to give the Spartans a commanding 4-1 lead.

“We knew that we would get some goals, but we didn’t think we would be able to keep them to two or three goals,” Novak said. “I don’t think anyone on our team would have believed that we would have beat them 7-3 or even win it at all.”

Novak’s second goal gave the Spartans a 5-1 lead with 13:45 to play in the second period with Krogman recording the assist. Otten also scored for Howell Central with 13:45 to go in the second period to bring the score to 6-1.

Ryan would trim Howell Central’s lead to 6-2 on an unassisted goal with 2:46 to go in the second period for his 30th goal of the season. But the Spartans bounced back with 9:43 to play in the third period with a goal by Novak and the assists from Rey and Krogman. CBC’s third and final goal of the game would come with 49 seconds to play in the game by Tanner Bulejski as Joshua Gray recorded the assist to bring the score to 7-3.

“We have quite a few kids that have never been down here,” Jost said. “It was a different reaction than what we’re normally use to.”