Brother Rice Crushes Royal Oak, 10-0, to Advance in Hockey Post-Season

OAK PARK – For a few moments Monday night, Brother Rice hockey players had butterflies in their stomachs. However, with six Royal Oak penalties and five Brother Rice goals in the first period, those butterflies quickly left. Rice added five more goals in the second period, forcing the game to be called using the 10-goal mercy rule with :26 seconds left in the second period.

Brother Rice head coach Lou Schmidt Jr. knew Royal Oak would bring a fight for survival to the ice.

"I thought we played well, but we had some butterflies early in the game and played too passively," he said. "But we did a better job of attacking, keeping the puck down low and attacking in their own zone."

Brother Rice captain Jake Jaskolski agreed with his coach's assessment. "We came out a little shaky, with this being the playoffs," he said "But once we settled down, we started to play our game."

Play they did. Five goals in each period for a final tally of 10 — six were power play goals — and 19 assists were given out in the blow-out win. Brother Rice found the net early — 14:02 of the first period when senior John Hickman put Brother Rice up. Hickman earned a hat trick in the first period with all of his goals coming on the power play.

Bobby Cross and Matthew Stack added goals to end the first period with Brother Rice up 5-0. Royal Oak changed goalies for the second period, but the Warriors peppered the backup with five more goals in the second to end the game with less than half a minute left in the period.

Thomas Ebbing picked up two second-period goals while Andrew Sohn, Campbell Gillespie and Jaskolski put in one each. Brother Rice had four penalties in the shortened contest while Royal Oak piled on eight, which kept the Ravens a man short throughout much of the contest.

"I thought they were a scrappy team and put up a nice battle," Schmidt said of Royal Oak. "But I'm happy overall with our performance. They got into penalty trouble and we work a lot on our power play. We were fortunate to get some nice goals."

Brother Rice now turns its attention to Warren Mott, which downed Bloomfield Hills Lahser in the earlier game, 2-1. "Everything is a stepping stone," Schmidt said. "They are similar to Royal Oak but probably have more skilled players. They'll continue to work hard, we just have to play our game."

Jaskolski knows his team has to be ready for Wednesday night. "They're not a joke and they're here to win just like we are,"Jaskolski said of Warren Mott. "I'm looking forward to playing them on Wednesday."

Game time is 7 p.m. Wednesday at Oak Park Ice Arena in Oak Park. The winner will advance to regional finals to play DeLaSalle.

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