JDHS hockey sets record, but falls twice to visiting Kenai

The Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé Crimson Bears hosted the Kenai Kardinals over the weekend, celebrating the JDHS seniors Friday night at the Treadwell Ice Arena before returning bright and early Saturday for a second match against their Northern Lights Conference foe.

Although the Crimson Bears fell in overtime 5-4 on Friday and 5-1 on Saturday, a slice of history was made.

Friday night saw an attendance record, with cars parked far into the surrounding Douglas Harbor and Sandy Beach lots, and the bleachers inside were filled. Fans who could not squeeze into seating stood at every available space along the arena glass.

“It was really great to see,” JDHS senior captain Luke Bovitz said after Saturday’s match. “It is really awesome when everybody shows up for everybody. It was unfortunate we couldn’t win last night, but it is just really cool to see the fans. I just want to say thank you to Juneau for the support. It is awesome you guys are there for us, thank you…It has been really fun playing with everybody. I’ve been playing with most of these guys for 12 years and it’s pretty cool to see where we are now. Hopefully it can get better throughout the year.”

Senior night was almost perfect, as JDHS senior Dylan Sowa scored a hat trick.

“It’s really cool,” Sowa said of his classmates. “I’ve been playing with these guys for as long as I’ve been playing hockey. I don’t know, the game was close but we almost made it happen. It was fun…I have never seen the barn this packed. It was impressive, a sellout…Today was tough. We just have to build from here and I would rather have that happen here than at state.”

Sowa put the Crimson Bears up early with a goal at 12:24, assisted by sophomore Tricen Headings.

Kenai’s Avery Martin scored at 7:47 of the first period unassisted to tie the score, and a minute later found the net again, assisted by Logan Mese and Will Howard for a 2-1 Kardinals’ lead.

Kenai’s Sawyer Vann made it 3-1, assisted by Gavin Liles on a power play with 2:09 left.

Bovitz pulled the Crimson Bears to 3-2 on an unassisted goal with 1:37 left in the first period. JDHS had four shots on goal in the stanza and Kenai took 10.

Kenai scored the only second-period goal as Mese found the net assisted by Martin with 5:46 remaining for a 4-2 lead. JDHS put nine shots on goal and Kenai 12.

JDHS’ Sowa scored on a power play at 12:19 of the third period unassisted to pull the Crimson Bears to 4-3.

JDHS then kept the visitors at bay and as time dwindled they did the dramatic — pulling senior goalie Caleb Friend, which gave the Crimson Bears an extra attacker and Sowa completed his hat trick in the final seconds assisted by senior Emilio Holbrook to knot the game and force extra time. JDHS had 12 shots on goal and Kenai five.

Kenai’s Mese scored with 6:42 on the clock, assisted by Martin, for the 5-4 win. JDHS had two shots on goal and Kenai three.

Friend turned back 25 shots, and Kenai’s Even Witt 23.

“Last night (Friday) we did not play good enough to win but we put ourselves in a position to win throughout the game,” JDHS coach Matt Boline said Saturday. “Super inspiring. We had a goal called off, and rightly so, then we tie it up and pull the goalie and score the eventual game tie-er to send it into overtime. The only thing better than that on a senior night is to win.”

“The place was absolutely packed. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that many people in the building before. I’ve heard a lot of people saying they have never seen that many cars in the parking lot before and had to walk that far to get into the building. And there was a lot of other stuff going on last night. Last night was awesome in a lot of ways, but obviously we didn’t get the win. This morning, a little bit different schedule, but that is not an excuse because we are used to getting up and practicing at 6 a.m., but we just didn’t show up to play today. We were kind of the sleepy bears this morning and we never really woke up until the last two minutes of that game.”

Saturday morning saw both teams play energetically and even through the first 10 minutes of action before Kenai erupted for four goals within three minutes to take a commanding 4-0 advantage.

With 3:22 remaining in the first period, Martin scored, assisted by Mese and Howard and 12 seconds later Mese scored assisted by Howard. Mese scored again with 2:29 remaining, assisted by Howard, and Vann scored with 1:29 left on an assist by Everett Chamberlain. Kenai put 13 shots on goal and JDHS five.

Kenai scored in the second period as Liles found the net unassisted with 5:16 remaining. Kenai had nine shots on goal and JDHS 10. The Kardinals had to play two men down at one point in the stanza and one man down twice.

In the third period, Kenai staved off two more penalties and looked to have a clean slate but JDHS sophomore Caden Morris was tripped from behind on a breakaway as he closed in on the Kenai net with 3:21 remaining in the game.

Awarded his first career penalty shot, Morris came through on a clutch pump and fake to put the Crimson Bears on the scoreboard.

“I was just thinking it had been a shutout the entire game and it just feels really cruddy to go out on a game where your team just doesn’t get any goals,” Morris said. “I was just thinking, ‘I need to get this for my team, I need to get them hyped up so we can put on that last pressure over the last five minutes.’ My heart was racing, my mind was asking what should I do. Should I shoot it, should I go around the goalie?…When I started I saw the goalie start moving his arms a lot but his legs were still so I knew he was not going to be able to move. I decide to fake a shot and then go around him because I saw he wasn’t going to be able to react enough. It really felt good to put my team on the board.”

“The seniors mean a lot. I look up to these people because I was watching them when I was younger and they were playing in my situation where they were sophomores on varsity. And it really means a lot to me when they have my back even though I might not be at the same caliber of a player as them.”

JDHS’ Friend saved 28 shots in the game and Kenai’s Witt 19. Morris’ score came with all eyes in the arena fixed on just him and the opposing goalie.

“I haven’t seen a penalty shot in a long time and I’m glad they called it,” coach Boline said. “It was a great shot and we won the period so we kind of pulled a little bit of good nuggets out of there. Kenai is one of those programs we have battled pretty hard against pretty regularly, but we have a lot of respect for their coaches and their kids.”

Kenai sportsmanship and character was displayed by Mese as before Friday’s varsity game Kardinals players were participating in hacky sack and he invited Boline’s 6-year-old son, Axel, in, asked his name and made him part of the group.

“Logan (Mese) has been voted on to be the best player in our conference the past three years in a row now,” Boline said. “We had been wishing he was a senior for the last three years. He is dynamic, fast, he can shoot the puck and it would be easier to not like him if he wasn’t such a good kid at the same time. Any interaction I have ever had with him he has been upstanding and an awesome kid. It is tough to lose those games but I guess I would rather that happen against a team like that.”

“Last year we beat them two times pretty handily in Kenai in the regular season, and we lost to them in the state tournament. That took the wind out of our sails and away from our ultimate goal last year of winning the whole thing. So this year maybe the tables will be turned. We dropped these two, but we’ll maybe get one more chance at them at state and we’ll make it count.”

Kenai improves to 8-4 and second place in the Northern Lights Conference (12-9 overall) and JDHS falls back to 6-5 and third in the NLC (9-8-1). Soldotna is fourth at 4-3 (8-7-2 overall), but has four conference games left and is favored in three and plays Kenai in the fourth.

Palmer leads the NLC with an 9-2 conference record (15-5 overall), Homer 1-6 (1-12 overall) and Kodiak is 1-9 (1-16 overall).

The top eight teams in the NLC and the Aurora Conference advance to the state championships Feb. 6-8 at the Soldotna Regional Sports Complex in Soldotna.

North Pole leads the Aurora Conference at 6-0-1 (15-4-1 overall), Houston is 4-1 (12-4-2 overall), Monroe 1-3-2 (8-4-3 overall), Tri Valley 2-5-1 (6-6-1 overall) and Delta 0-4 (1-8 overall).

All conference scores have not been updated.

“Juneau, a great team,” Kenai coach Steven Hallam said. “Well disciplined and well coached. You can tell you have a really, really great program down here. There is not a single second where you all don’t have opportunities or looking to score. Super talented and super skilled and really well coached. A great environment. The atmosphere here with everyone on the glass and everyone showing up it has been really super fun…The playoffs are getting close, two weeks from now up in Soldotna, so it will be exciting.”

JDHS will face Tri-Valley at 1:45 p.m. on Friday and Wasilla at 7 p.m. On Saturday, they play Wasilla at 3 p.m. and Tri-Valley at 8 p.m. (JV play a showcase at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday and Tri-Valley at 3:30 p.m. Thursday.)

The JDHS seniors included Caleb Friend (#1), Luke Bovitz (4), Carter Miller (6), Zander Smith (8), Ike Puustinen (16), Matthew Plang (22), Loren Platt (26), Angel Aranda-Jackson (27), Dylan Sowa (35), and Emilio Holbrook (37).

• Contact Klas Stolpe at klas.stolple@juneauempire.com.