EAST ALTON — The Alton Redbirds advance to the second round of the Class 1A MVCHA playoffs after defeating the Highland Bulldogs 6-2 at the East Alton Ice Arena Tuesday night.
Redbird captain Bryce Simon tallied four goals and goalie Caleb Currie stopped 12 shots in the win.
The teams split the first two games of the series, with Alton taking the first game 3-1 in East Alton and Highland coming back to take the second game 6-2 in Granite City. Tuesday's game was the tiebreaker. With the win, Alton advances to play Belleville in the next round.
Game 1 of that series is scheduled for 8:45 p.m. Thursday in East Alton. Game 2 is set for 8:40 p.m. Monday at the Granite City Ice Rink and the third game, if necessary, is back in East Alton at 7:15 p.m. Tuesday.
"This win was huge for us," said Simon. "For me, Caleb, Mark (Vitali) and Tanner (St. Peters), this is our last season, so it's real big for us to go further in the playoffs. We got a big win here , it gives us a lot of momentum moving forward so that we can bring a strong game against Belleville."
The Redbirds didn't waste any time getting things going, jumping to a 3-0 lead by the end of the first period. Simon started things off at 10:23 with a two-on-one with Tanner St Peters. Using St. Peters as a decoy, Simon skated the puck to the high slot and fired a shot that beat Highland goalie Hunter Micheletto low glove.
Sophomore Jake Eppel followed with the second goal three minutes later, chasing down a loose puck along the boards and blasting a shot past Micheletto, who was scrambling to get into position.
Simon then capped the first period with his second goal of the game when he picked up the puck in his own end and skated it the length of the ice and ripped a shot over the glove of Micheletto to make it 3-0.
Simon said that from the get-go he could tell he was going to have a strong game.
"After that first shift I was just really hyped up I had a lot of energy going into it, and me Tanner and Jack had some really good puck movement, and I knew we'd be able to get a bunch of goals just moving the puck the way we just kept playing off each other," he said.
Alton added another goal to start the second when Tristin Seymore intercepted a Highland pass at their blue line and skated the puck in all alone and beat Micheletto low on the glove side, making it 4-0 Redbirds.
Highland made things interesting in the second frame, scoring their only two goals of the game within a 5 minutes span.
Taking advantage of some confusion in the Alton end, Lucas Korte jumped on a loose puck just above the hash marks and beat Currie, who could not see the puck. Five minutes later, his brother Zach Korte corralled a rebound off Currie's pads and fired another shot that hit something in front before bouncing way up in the air over the goalie's head and trickling into the net.
Highland coach John Criswell said after the game that the only way to get pucks past Currie is to cause commotion in front of him and hope for some luck.
"You can't just take straight-on shots with him," Criswell said, "If he sees the puck he is going to stop it. he's a really good goalie, what you have to do is create a lot of commotion in front of him, move it side to side we didn't even control the puck enough tonight to do that."
St. Peters added another goal for Alton before the second period was over, and Currie kept the door shut for the third period, stopping 9 shots in the final frame while Simon went on to score two more goals.
Criswell said that the St. Peters goal was the final nail in the coffin.
"That goal they got at the end of the second, when we had brought it back to a two-goal deficit and they got the goal — that took the wind out of our sails."
Alton head coach Steve Campbell was happy for his team, but expects a much tougher series against Belleville.
"We played a great game tonight, three periods of all-out hockey. We have stressed all year that if you don't play for three periods you don't usually win big games and we are going to need that against Belleville. They are a quick team. They play hard and physical." Campbell said. "We got some great play from our seniors and our goaltending was outstanding, as it usually is."
