Champs prevail in playoff opener

Columbia 4, Timberland 0 – Eagles win despite listless effort.

The defending MVCHA champs didn’t start their title defense with much flair.

Fortunately for Columbia, Timberland was forced to skate with just a handful of players and the Eagles glided by with a 4-0 victory in game one of the 1A playoff quarterfinals Sunday at Fairview Heights.

The game was delayed as the teams waited for a linesman to show up. The zebra eventually arrived, but the Eagles were stuck in park, despite an overwhelming majority of the possession.

“It didn’t help that we had a 20-minute warm-up when one of the refs didn’t show,” Columbia senior captain Cody Overmann said. “We also had a mindset that, because they only had two players on the bench, we could walk all over them. Our heads weren’t totally in the game.”

“They only had seven players on their team, so they only had two extra guys, which is next to impossible,” Columbia coach Jeff Royer said. “We told our guys after the game that if Timberland had had a full bench we might have been in trouble.”

Matt Royer set up behind the Timberland net and fed Alex Nanna in front for the tap-in to give the Eagles a 1-0 lead with 1:50 to play in the first period.

Netminder Kyle Royer kept the undermanned visitors from knotting the score with a pair of point-blank saves early in the second and teammate Stephan Bell extended the advantage to 2-0. Defenseman Tyler Overmann executed a perfect spinorama and slid behind the net, where he passed in front for Bell, who got his stick down among a tangle of skates and slotted home.

Bell scored again on another rebound late in the second period and Nanna was credited with the Eagles fourth goal, which came in the third on a bad bounce off a Timberland defender.

Columbia had come into the game knowing that goaltender Jake Rock would be a hard nut to crack and he didn’t disappoint.

“(Rock) is a good goalie,” Coach Royer said. “You aren’t going to beat him on a direct shot. You have to keep the puck down, get rebounds and get him moving side to side. There are certain plays a goalie can’t stop. You get him moving side to side, I don’t care who it is, you are going to beat him, but you have to do the work to get down there and make that happen.

“Their team battled. I give them a lot of credit. We have to transition the puck faster, our forwards have to get in harder on the forecheck. I just thought our guys let up some because they only had seven guys. You can’t do that. You have to play your game no matter what.”

It wasn’t the best performance, but at least the Eagles got it out of the way early in the postseason.

“We need to play up to our full potential if we want to make it further in the playoffs,” Overmann said. “If we lollygag around we aren’t going to do well later in the series.”

“I don’t know what it is,” Coach Royer said. “Part of it is that we are young, but guys have to realize that if we don’t wake up and start playing with more intensity we are going to end up losing our last game.”

With the 2009 hardware securely ensconced in their trophy case, Columbia’s players have become accustomed to skating with the target on their backs this season. They know the playoffs will be no different.

“Everyone expects us to do well because we won it all last year, but everyone is coming out gunning for us,” Overmann said. “We are trying to do our best to repeat this year. We’ll see.”

“The other side of having young guys is that they want to win again,” Coach Royer said. “They realize how much fun it was last year and they want to win again. We have just been trying to get guys to gel and play as a team and realize what it takes to win, what it takes to get back to where we were last year.

“They are marked. Teams want to beat you. You have to come out and give your best every game, but I was a little disappointed in our effort tonight.”