The podcast links for last night’s games are included in the game recaps.

Broadcast links for tomorrow

Ravenwood vs. Montgomery Bell BROADCAST LINK

Brentwood vs. Rutherford Rampage BROADCAST LINK

Recapping last night’s games

Henry Hine Cup Losers’ Bracket Final
Brentwood 7, Hendersonville-Beech-Gallatin 6 (OT) PODCAST LINK
Ty Essenmacher opened the scoring nearly two minutes into the game, when he buried the rebound on a saved Will Hubbard shot. Nearly two minutes later, Landon Croft tied the game up, when he hammered a Merrick Mott centering pass into the back of the net from the right circle. Just over four minutes later, Gideon Drobnick gave the Commandos the lead, when he backhanded the puck off of the top of the right leg pad of Bruins goalie Payne Fielder and in, this coming after Colin Smith found Drobnick all alone in the slot, and sent the puck his way. Nearly two minutes later, Aidan Pustizzi tied the game up at 2-2 when he closed in on the Hendersonville net, and shot the puck through the skate blades of goalie Jackson Brodrick. Just 29 seconds later, the Commandos regained the lead on an odd sequence: Carter Morrison’s shot from the high slot hit the skate blade of Brentwood’s Graham Engelhardt in front of the net; the puck caromed to Drobnick in the right circle, where he took a one-timer that Fielder stopped, but dropped into the crease, where Colin Smith was waiting to bury the rebound, and it was 3-2 after one. Just seven seconds into the second period, Brentwood won the opening faceoff, and pushed the puck into the Hendersonville zone, where Clayton Ellsworth found Essenmacher all alone going down the slot, feeding Ty a centering pass that he would bury to tie the game up. Just over a minute later, Drobnick gave Hendersonville the lead back, when he shot the puck into the top corner on the right-hand side of the Brentwood net from the right circle. 55 seconds later, Hendersonville won a faceoff inside their own zone; Morrison took the puck right to the front of the Brentwood net, and fired it in to extend the lead to 5-3. The score held up until exactly 32 seconds left in the period when, on a power play, Ellsworth shot the puck under Brodrick’s right leg to bring Brentwood to within 5-4, and that was the score after two. Just over four minutes into the third, Colin Smith took a 2-and-10 for head contact, meaning Hendersonville would be without their best player for a while. It took Brentwood just 31 seconds to convert the power play, as Ellsworth shot the puck into the roof of the net from the slot, and the game was tied. Nearly six minutes later, Brentwood took just their second lead of the game, when Ellsworth completed his hat trick by firing the puck into the back of the net from the left circle. The 6-5 lead held up until the final minute of regulation, when, with the net empty, Dom Harpole took a shot from the left point that deflected off of a stick, and ended up in the net, this goal coming with 32.4 seconds left in the third. Just 2:05 into overtime, Ellsworth had a shot that was stopped by Brodrick, but the rebound came over to Essenmacher, who completed his hat trick by sticking it in the bottom right corner. A wild game, and an instant classic. You hated to see either team lose. A crazy sequence happened in the second: Pustizzi got a stretch pass near the Hendersonville blue line; he carried it into the zone all alone, only for Brodrick to stop him twice; seconds later, Drobnick got a mini-breakaway in the Brentwood end, only for Fielder to shut him down, too. That Fielder save ended up being the difference in the end.

Next game for Brentwood: Tomorrow vs. Rutherford Rampage @ 8:40 PM @ Centennial A in the Henry Hine Cup Final

Predators Cup Losers’ Bracket Semifinal
Ravenwood 6, Franklin 3 PODCAST LINK
Maclaine Butters scored the game’s first goal nearly four minutes into the first on a power play, when Hudson Richards found him all alone in front from behind the net, and passed Butters the puck, where he shot it into the bottom corner on the right-hand side of the net. Nearly four minutes later, Brady Friedman tied the game, when he hammered a Liam Powell centering pass into the back of the net from in front. Just over four minutes later, Ravenwood took the lead for good: Jake Lapinsky had a backhander that was stopped by Admirals goalie Grayson Butters, but the puck popped up into the air, and landed in the crease behind him, where Powell was able to bury the rebound, and it was 2-1 Raptors after one. 35 seconds into the second, Ravenwood increased the lead to 3-1, when Lapinsky buried a rebound from a blocked Owen Appel shot. Nine minutes later, Friedman got a second on a power play, when he fired the puck into the back of the net from the high slot. With 37 seconds left in the second, Owen McGroarty received a stretch pass up the right wing; he found Grant Hays going to the front of the net, and passed him the puck, with Hays sliding it underneath Raptors netminder Colin Gower and in, and it was 4-2 after two. Things completely fell apart for Franklin late in the third, as they took numerous penalties. On one of the Ravenwood power plays, Friedman completed the hat trick when he received a cross-ice pass in the left circle, and fired it into a wide open net to make it 5-2 Ravenwood. Ten seconds later, Kasper Thuresson took the puck into the Raptors’ zone off the subsequent faceoff, and took a slapshot from the right wing boards that went into the roof of the net, but any hopes of a comeback were dashed 82 seconds later, when Cooper Hill one-timed the puck into the roof of the net from the bottom of the left circle of the Franklin zone to score the game’s final goal. The Raptors continue their march through the Losers’ Bracket, but now have to go through Hunter Wieck and the Big Red. Can they do it? They’ll need to overwhelm them in the way Ensworth did last week; we’ll see. But they’ve gone from, “It’s not gonna be us” to “Why not us?”

Next game for Ravenwood: Tomorrow vs. Montgomery Bell @ 7:10 PM @ Centennial A in the Losers’ Bracket Final

Brackets

Predators Cup

Henry Hine Cup

Requiem for the eliminated

Franklin
Departing Seniors: Gavin Akers, Maclaine Butters, Grant Hays, Cael Lewis, Quinn Lohse, Owen McGroarty, Brandon Mills, Cole Poynor, and Hudson Richards
This was the best season in Franklin program history; for the first time, they were at the top of the league. They were untouchable for most of the regular season; then the three-game losing streak came. Poor play against Ensworth, Pope (especially Pope), and Summit cost them the GNASH Cup, although, from what I was told, the players didn’t really care about winning it, which is a shame, because this Franklin team deserved to win something. Instead, they end the season empty-handed. The bad habits they picked up carried over into the playoffs, and MBA easily dispatched them in the first round. They survived with wins over Summit and Father Ryan, but the bad habits surfaced again last night against Ravenwood. Too many individual efforts at season’s end hurt them, and not enough playing as a team. That is a big senior class full of very good players, but, they’re bringing back some pretty good players next year. The Admirals won’t be as good, but I think they can hover near the top.

Hendersonville-Beech-Gallatin
Departing Seniors: Jackson Brodrick, Harper Dienna, Nate Luke, Justin Schaefer, and Jared Shirden
Hendersonville missed out on moving up to Tier 1 at midseason by one point. They had a seven-game unbeaten streak - with a four-game winning streak embedded within - at one point in the regular season, but poor play in the second half made that a distant memory. They returned to first half form in the Hine Cup, with big wins over Centennial and the Outlaws, but the goaltending wasn’t good enough against Rutherford or Brentwood. Still, the Commandos are bringing back a lot of good players next year, including Colin Smith and Carter Morrison, so, I do think that next year might be the year they get back into the Predators Cup.

Tomorrow’s schedule

MTSN will broadcast both games.
Both games will be played @ Centennial A

Predators Cup Losers’ Bracket Final
#8 Ravenwood vs. #4 Montgomery Bell - 7:10 PM

Henry Hine Cup Final
#5 Brentwood vs. #1 Rutherford Rampage - 8:40 PM

Podcasts

All MTSN game podcasts will be uploaded exclusively to YouTube this season. To subscribe to our YouTube channel, scroll down to the footer of this newsletter, and click on the play button to be taken to our channel.

Miscellaneous links

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The next newsletter comes out tomorrow, February 28.