Bellevue vs Curtis Game Recap

Out of nowhere, Curtis leads 2-0 after only a minute and five seconds of play in the game.  Coming off the face-off, Curtis puts two goals together from fast breaks, and Bellevue is wondering what happened.  There was stunned silence among the Bellevue fans while the Curtis parents went nuts.

  Curtis  is both aggressive on the ground balls and in their 2-3-1 offense, attacking the strength of Bellevue’s defense by spreading them wide and forcing slides from drives up top. 
Not to be held back, Bellevue answers back with a pair themselves late in the first quarter to rally to a 2-2. In the third, Curtis put the next two goals on Schmidt, making the tally 5-2 and really seems to want this game.  Bellevue appears flat, perhaps because offensive powerhouse Spangler is still banged up from his Tuesday effort, or something else.  Two Curtis freshman have scored thus far in Yergler and Blaisdell.  Additional tallies came from Carlstrom, Grimstad, and Sheldon for Curtis, who has spread the ball around and the scoring. Going into half-time, the score is 5-4 Curtis.

Bellevue tied with less than 2 minutes left in the third making the score 5-5, but the momentum still belongs to Curtis. As the quarter expires, we have a tie game and Curtis leading the stats both for ground balls and shots. 
Curtis takes possession to start the fourth quarter, and defensively turns this into a battle on ground balls as much as possession. Bellevue takes possession working from up top to get some clearance, but they can’t seem to get the lanes needed for successful shots, and the forced feeds turn the ball over. 
Bellevue catches a break with a 30 second hold giving them a man-up opportunity to take it to the cooker, but Curtis wasn’t having it.  Killing the penalty, Curtis takes possession and gives it right back through a long with a host of possession penalties.  Setting up the offense, Bellevue moves the ball behind to work, but makes bad passes and turns it over again. Time keeps slipping by, and Bellevue looks like they may have already decided the outcome themselves. 
Curtis is having trouble possessing the ball as well, but Schmidt also made some good saves, and cleared the ball to help keep his offense on track.  Bellevue worked the Until Jamie Yergler breaks the tie with the go ahead deal breaker only 2:25 left in the fourth.  Bellevue wins the next face-off and fights to maintain possession.  Once touching the box, Bellevue calls a time-out to strategize how to put their deficit away. 
Coming out In the 1-4, Bellevue wants to ISO the short stick up top, and force an inside feed to get to the cage.  Splitting up top, the slide comes early and a pass is thrown out of bounds- Curtis ball.

Thanks to some tenacious defense from both Jack Gervais and Taylor Platt, the ball quickly sails the other direction. 
With 1:15 on the clock, Bellevue will have another chance to move the ball for a shot.  This time, they choose to go behind and work on the cage with feeds from ‘X’.  Curtis defensemen Anderson, Mays and Wilson have been all over the Bellevue Attack this second half, and force another turnover on the crease.  Once clearing, Curtis then turns the ball over again, as they fail to keep it in the box.  Bellevue has one last opportunity with 40 seconds on the clock.  The last 40 seconds typified the game, in that Bellevue couldn’t hang on to the ball- Curtis had a transition to possessing the ball in the box, and Bellevue looked like they thought this wasn’t the end of their season, but like they still had a quarter left to play.  No shut-offs or doubles, to help get the ball back.  Bellevue’s Crollard gets the ball back in his stick far away from the cage with little hope of getting a shot on cage.
 
" We had some individual players step up, but in most games, we have to score more than 5 goals to be a playoff team".  Dave Piechowski.  With Jordan Yergler as netminder, Bellevue should have been more capable of exploiting the problem.  Yergler was a key part of the game, and deserves mention making 20 saves on 25 shots breaking from his attack role this game.