Birmingham Unified Dominates Berkley-Ferndale in 5-1 Opening Round Playoff Win

BIRMINGHAM – Down 1-0 halfway through the second period Monday night, the Birmingham Unified hockey team didn’t look like a team on the brink of elimination.

They looked like a team ready to strike. And strike they did.

Birmingham scored five goals in the second and third period to win its first round pre-regional game at the 5-1 over Berkley-Ferndale Unified. 

“For one reason or another, the last couple of games we’ve played we’ve ended up down a goal in the first period,” Birmingham coach John Weidenbach said. “We were seasoned for (a comeback.)”

That comeback started when the only freshman to hit the ice on Monday took over the game. Birmingham freshman Lucas Almeter scored two goals in the second period (8:15 and 3:19) to give Birmingham Unified (12-11-2) a 2-1 lead and shift the momentum back in his team’s direction after falling behind in the first.

“Lucas was up with us at the beginning of the year and played some games,” Weidenbach said. “We sent him down to get some more ice time (and) it seems to have paid off.” 

Almeter was positioned in front of the net perfectly for both goals. The defenseman rebounded a shot from Conner Flynn on the first goal and did the same five minutes later off a shot from Braun Drake. James Bertrand was also credited with an assist on the second goal.

Coming out of the second intermission, Berkley-Ferndale tried to get back on track. The Bears nearly tied the game on two scoring opportunities from Noah Reiter. The junior had two shots on goal that barely missed the net. 

Junior goalie Spencer Whitehead was out of position on the first, but Reiter’s shot went wide left. Whitehead was able to get the tip of his glove on the second one to push it over the crossbar.

“The difference in this game tonight was that Birmingham scored on their opportunities and we had opportunities that we couldn’t take advantage of,” Berkley-Ferndale coach Jeff Fleming said.

Just a minute later, Birmingham converted a three-on-one advantage in Berkley’s zone for its third goal of the night (4:44). J.D. Hess put in a rebound off a shot from Adam Susalla. Michael Ryan was credited with an assist as well. 

The Bears (12-8-5) found themselves down 3-1 and their comeback chances slipping away.

“I think the third goal was kind of a backbreaker,” Fleming said.

Berkley senior Nick Landgraf agreed with how well Birmingham's goaltender was playing.

“We knew goals were going to be hard to come by,” Landgraf said. “It does take it out of you when you realize it’s going to be hard to score that many goals against a team like this.”

Birmingham Unified didn’t stop there. In the game’s last five minutes Birmingham added two more. Kyle Chorazyczewski and Hess set up Susalla for a goal (11:09) and then Kevin Willberding scored (13:33) from Chris Donnellon and Alec Yuhn.

“I’m telling them on the bench in the third period keep going, keep the puck deep, go hard, run them over and get pucks to the net,” Weidenbach said.

Birmingham will have two days to get ready for Athens. The teams play in the pre-regionals final at 7 p.m. Wednesday night.  Athens advanced in the early game 1-0 at the Birmingham Ice Arena over Troy.

That game went into double overtime pushing back the start time of Birmingham and Berkley-Ferndale’s game over an hour. The opening puck didn't drop until 9:42 p.m., but the late start did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of the fans from and . They were a strong presence throughout the game and heckled the Bears for most of the night.

“The crowd was great,” Weidenbach said. “It’s our first time hosting it (the pre-regionals) and I was ecstatic. I saw that whole section full of students and that’s what you want.”