BENSENVILLE – The Leyden Eagles met the Fox Valley Hawks Sunday afternoon at the Edge Ice Arena in Bensenville in a Round of 16 matchup for the Blackhawk Cup State Tournament.
It was the teams' fifth game this season.
They met three times during the regular season, once in the postseason tournament in the Illinois High School Hockey League Gold Division tournament with Leyden winning all but one of the games.
Sunday afternoon was no different. as the Eagles skated past the Hawks 2-0.
For Hawks senior goalie Anthony Chiefari, from Geneva, it was the end of a journey through the Hawks system. He stopped 16 of the 18 shots he faced on the afternoon.
“I think this was probably my most successful ever," Chiefari said. "This was the highest our club has ever had in the history of our program.”
Chiefari sported a 1.46 goals against average for the season, gave up only 19 goals on 307 shots and had a .940 save percentage.
“My expectations were met for this season to now,” Chiefari said. “I wanted my team to be the best they could be this season. I really enjoyed going to the league all-star game and representing my team. But today we just fell short. But there is nothing like playoff hockey. It was great out there today.”
Chiefari will be looking to play club hockey next fall when he attends Loyola.
But Sunday the Eagles made sure it would be a long afternoon for Fox Valley. They held the Hawks to seven shots in the first period and 16 shots for the game. After a scoreless first period the Eagles grabbed a 1-0 lead at the 3:44 mark of the second period when forward Matt Hagerstrom scored an unassisted goal.
“We just could not score today,” Hawks coach Phil Gabrielsen said. “We certainly had chances today. Both goalies came up huge today I thought. At the beginning of the game we were all over them. We just went down fighting.”
The Eagles added to their lead in the third period as forward Anthony Bagnole took a feed from forward Mason Perri and beat Chiefari from in close for the 2-0 advantage.
“Everything just went their (Leyden's) way today,” Gabrielsen said. “A few times we just missed the net today. We hit a (goal)post once. I told our guys at the end, we have nothing to hang our heads on. We played our hearts out. Sometimes it's just not your day.”
The Eagles scored an empty-net goal with seven seconds left in regulation time as forward Patryk Niescior dented the empty Hawks' net.
To show what kind of season it was for the Hawks this season, the club was in sixth place at Thanksgiving in the Gold Division of the IHSHL North Central League. From then until February the team lost just one game.
“We missed first place by one point,” Gabrielsen said. “Half of our team was brand new and half the team had to learn each others' first names for a good part of the season. I have no problems with how we finished the season. No issues.”
The Hawks outshot the Eagles 30-19 and only took three minor penalties for the game.
The Hawks will return three varsity skaters next season including a goalie while saying good bye to 16 seniors.
“I will miss all 16 seniors in that locker room,” Gabrielsen said. “The core of this team started on our JV2 team and we brought them through the system to this point."