Scouts lose heartbreaker to Ramblers

Lake Forest’s dreams of making it to the Illinois state hockey finals were dashed following a 2-1 heartbreaking semifinal loss to Loyola Academy on March 17 at Edge Ice Arena in Bensenville.

With seven minutes, 21 seconds left, Loyola Academy’s Kaela Finegan scored a clutch goal to notch a 4-0 season series sweep.

“I didn’t really see it go in, except for when all my teammates came to me,” freshman Finegan said. “It was really cool to have gotten the game-winner, because I haven’t scored a lot but that one really helped.”

The sequence started when defenseman Courtney Cheevers picked up the puck just inside center ice and skated past defenseman Alexandra Kazarian to setup a breakaway. Her shot was stuffed by goalie Corynn Salazar.

Finegan took advantage of Lake Forest’s inability to clear the puck from their defensive zone by blasting a shot off the crossbar from just inside the zone.

“I wish I could shoot like that,” Loyola coach Conor Sedam said. “It’s amazing. As a coach you try not to get too high or too low on the bench, try to stay pretty even keel. She took that shot and I jumped in the air in did a 360. It was awesome and she was under the weather to boot. She toughed it out today.”

Both teams failed to capitalize on their three power plays, but they influenced the ending.

With 2:53 to go, Lake Forest had a power play and forced a save out of goalie Tianna Lavalle, but the man advantage was over by the 1:48 mark, when forward Ava Applebaum was whistled for a high stick.

No.1-seeded Loyola dominated large portions of the game with its speed and possession, but never looked overly dangerous. Lake Forest had just one more save at 13-12.

“Their defensemen are great, they have a couple (like Sheridan Weiss) that are just big,” Sedam said. “Anytime you are playing against big opponents their stick reach is longer. It’s hard to get past them. They take up more space. We talked about getting pucks to the net.”

No. 5 seed Lake Forest’s tying goal with 12:52 remaining came against the run of play. Defenseman Mary Newtown took a deep shot in the offensive zone that was redirected in the air from the left side of the net for a finish by forward Victoria Soukup.

“After they scored the tying goal all of the sudden it feels like you are losing,” Sedam said. “It’s a tie game, you have to say hey, ‘It’s a tie game, it’s 0-0, get back to work.’ We had the better chances.”

Loyola opened its account 24 seconds into the second period to end a shutout streak of four periods by the Scouts in the postseason.

From the left side, forward Tess Dettling centered the puck to Cheevers in front of the net, who had her first shot saved but finished the rebound.

The Scouts showed fight from that point on, never looking like the contest was getting out of hand.

“I think we held with them,” Lake Forest coach Elizabeth Zorn said. “Loyola has been a battle all year long, so we were going into it ready. Our girls played their hearts out. Corynn made some huge saves. I was really happy and pleased with that. We had good offense; we had some chances.”