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Sports

Southgate Anderson not Friendly to Ravens in 6-2 Tournament Battle

Royal Oak is dominated in first round of weekend hockey tournament, but it plays again Saturday.

GROSSE POINTE WOODS – In the past, the annual varsity boys hockey tournament held at University Liggett School has been called the Friendship Tournament. That title would not have been fitting of the way the opening game of the tournament was played Friday night.

The first game of the newly named Holiday Tournament at McCann Ice Rink in Grosse Pointe Woods was an extremely chippy affair, with the Royal Oak Ravens and Southgate Anderson having several players ejected from the game.

In the end, Southgate pulled away from Royal Oak, 6-2, and will play in the tournament championship Saturday night at 5:35 p.m. against the winner of the Grosse Pointe South vs. Liggett game, while Royal Oak will square off against the loser of the nightcap.

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Royal Oak has traditionally been known as a physical, and often, dirty hockey team, but first-year head coach Bob Thibeault is trying to change the culture around the Ravens hockey team.

Despite the massive list of penalties for both teams that practically required an extra scoresheet Friday night, Thibeault wasn't frustrated with the infractions taken by his team.

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However, in the previous two games of the season, Thibeault said his team needed to play more disciplined. Friday, it wasn't about playing disciplined – it was about sticking up for your teammates. "The referees kept letting everything go and finally our guys said enough of that," Thibeault said. "I can't fault our guys. For the most part, we didn't take any dumb penalties. The ones we took were sticking up for ourselves."

The first period was fairly clean, with only one penalty called in the entire frame. Southgate jumped ahead with 4:33 remaining in the period and held a 1-0 lead going into the first intermission. Southgate tallied two quick goals in a 20-second span early in the second period, both of which came when Southgate forwards were left wide open in front of the net. The Ravens got a goal back with 9:01 remaining in the second period. However, Southgate countered with a goal of its own 16 seconds after sophomore forward Zach Kopinski's tally. Southgate extended its lead to 4-1 with 2:41 remaining in the second period.

The game took a turn for the worse when Royal Oak junior defenseman Dillon Balnius was crushed into the boards by a Southgate defenseman, who left his feet and brought his elbow up into the check. Balnius had to be helped off the ice and didn't return.

Royal Oak was awarded a five minute power play for the hit, and Southgate took two more minor penalties late in the period to give the Ravens a full 5-on-3 power play to end the middle frame. Royal Oak didn't capitalize with the two-man advantage late in the second period, but freshman forward Evan Fall tallied a goal 31 seconds into the third period to make the score 5-2 in Southgate's favor.

Kopinski said it may have been a different game if the Ravens would have been able to cash in on another goal on the lengthy two-man advantage. "When we have chances like that we have to take advantage of our opportunities," Kopinski said. "That could have helped us take the momentum. Against a team like that, they are going to keep going to the box so we have to keep scoring on the power play."

The quality hockey went out the window and the game quickly turned chippy midway through the third period. Both teams took a slew of penalties, which resulted in the third period taking nearly an hour to complete. Royal Oak had three players ejected from the game, while Southgate had one. At times the penalty box was full and players were forced to stand up to make room for each other in the "sin bin."

"Games like that, with a team like that, it's real easy for it to get out of hand," Fall said. "But if you sit back and let them take advantage of you, you are going to get hurt. We had a player get hurt out there and you can't let that happen."

Southgate added a late goal with 5:20 remaining in the game to seal its place in the championship.

"We had a four minute span there in the second period were we played really bad," Thibeault said. "But beyond that you guys stepped up and worked hard to get back in the game.  We will take one on the chin and move on and come out and play hard tomorrow."

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