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Back-to-Back Titles for Squirt Select

By Fremont Flyers, 02/01/22, 7:15PM CST

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Flyers finish undefeated 10-0-1 in Midwest Hockey League Squirt Select

The Fremont Flyers 10U Squirt Select team won their second straight Midwest Hockey League Gold Division title with a thrilling 2-1 shootout win over rival Omaha on Sunday, Jan. 30, in a rematch of the 2021 game that was held in Fremont.

The Flyers, who finished 6-0-1 in the regular season came into the playoff weekend without a loss and left with the championship trophy and banner still undefeated with a final 10-0-1 record. But few of those games came easy.

The team battled in Wichita the weekend of Jan. 14-16 in four games against three teams from Kansas City and host Wichita without two of their forwards due to COVID protocol. The short-staffed Flyers found a way to go 3-0-1 and had to kill off two 6-on-3 powerplays with the other teams' pulling the goalie, at the end two of the games.

That experience and grit paved the way in the championship tilt versus Omaha, who the Flyers would have to beat a third time on the season to repeat as champions. The Flyers dominated for the first two periods but Omaha’s counter-attack produced a breakaway goaltender KC Kern would turn away and the Flyers would once again kill off a 5-on-3 man disadvantage to end the second period. Midway through the third period though, Omaha snuck one in on a bouncing puck in front of the net, to take a 1-0 lead.

With just over four minutes left, the Flyers killed off another penalty to one of the team's leading scorers, Carsten Vorland, who came out of the box, found the puck in the neutral zone, and split the D before scoring to tie the game. A frantic final three minutes and a four minute four-on-four overtime solved nothing, so the teams went to a 3-man shootout to decide the title game.

Saunders County native and JCAC’s Logan Nielsen scored on a slick move as the second shooter but the teams remained knotted 1-1 after three shooters sending it to a sudden death fourth round. Enter Vorland off the bench again where he faked the goalie on a shot before waiting him out and flipping it over his pad for the 2-1 shootout lead. Kern, who attends Lutheran Trinity, then stoned the final Omaha shooter and the celebration took hold at Ralston Arena on Omaha’s home ice.

The goalie tandem of Kern and Rosario Caniglia, played in eleven games including four playoff matchups, and posted a 1.40 goals against average on the season. The team had 14 different goal scorers and everyone had a point on the season.

“The determination of this team is something special,” said head coach Jason Buzzell. “We have been working as a team to find different ways to win and I was glad the kids got rewarded for that hard work. We keep telling them and they bought into the concept that, ‘No one wins alone’ which separated us from the competition in the end.”

The Flyers now have three tournaments left in Kansas City, Omaha and St. Lous to end the season over the next month.