Images: Berkley-Ferndale Hockey Eliminated From Playoffs

BIRMINGHAM – Berkley-Ferndale Unified’s hockey season ended Monday night in a disappointing fashion.

Birmingham Unified dominated the Bears 5-1 in the opening round of pre-regionals at the Birmingham Ice Arena. It wasn’t how the Berkley-Ferndale coaches or players envisioned their season ending.

“I’m disappointed because I had very high expectations for our team,” Berkley-Ferndale coach Jeff Fleming said.

Birmingham Unified didn’t allow a goal after the first period and scored five of its own in the second and third periods.

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

Berkley-Ferndale’s (12-8-5) only goal of the game was on a rebound from senior Nick Landgraf (1:59). He scored off a shot of Luc Hammerle. Kyle Siporin was credited with an assist. But that’s where the Bears' offense stalled.

“Coming out of the first period, we had two or three real good opportunities we didn’t take advantage of and that ends up being the difference in these kind of games,” Fleming said.

Birmingham erased the 1-0 Berkley-Ferndale lead when the only freshman to hit the ice Monday took over the game. 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.

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

The Bears had three power play chances in the game that went nowhere and numerous good looks that they couldn’t convert into goals. Failing to convert solid scoring opportunities has been his team’s nemesis all year, Fleming said.

Two misses by Noah Reiter coming out of the second intermission were prime examples. The Bears nearly tied the game on both of them. Birmingham's junior goalie Spencer Whitehead was out of position on Reiter’s shot, but it went wide left. Whitehead was just able to get the tip of his glove on the second one to push it over the crossbar.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” Landgraf said. “We’d get it right up to the front of the net. Stuff like that is going to prevent you from beating great teams like this.”

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. Berkley-Ferndale found itself down 3-1 and its comeback chances slipping away. 

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

With how well Birmingham’s goaltender was playing, Landgraf agreed.

“We knew goals were going to be hard to come by,” he 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.

The players certainly listened to their coach’s advice.

Note: Birmingham will play Athens in the pre-regional final Wednesday at 7 p.m. Athens advanced in the early game 1-0 at the Birmingham Ice Arena over Troy. That game went into double overtime, pushing the start time of Birmingham and Berkley-Ferndale’s back more than hour. The opening puck didn't drop until 9:42 p.m.