Defeated Trenton 4 games to 1
May 27, 2001
SCORE BY PERIODS
Trenton 1 1 0--2
South Carolina 3 0 0--3
FIRST
PERIOD -- Scoring: 1, South Carolina-Ham (Irving, Schmidt) 1:41.
2, South
Carolina-Remackel (Brindley, Calder) 4:39. 3, South Carolina-
Calder (Swanson,
Seitz) 13:51. 4, Trenton-O’Brien (Heron), 14:30.
Penalties:
Beckett, TRE (interference), 4:19. BENCH, TRE (too many men),
5:55. Bednar, SC
(holding), 8:51. Beckett, TRE (holding), 12:48.
Bertoli, TRE (roughing), 20:00.
SECOND
PERIOD -- Scoring: 5, Trenton-St. Hilaire (Skrobot, Belter) 6:23.
Penalties:
Ham, SC (roughing), 2:48. Bednar, SC (slashing), 7:03. White,
TRE (cross
checking), 15:28.
THIRD
PERIOD -- Scoring: None. Penalties: Belter, TRE (slashing), 10:47.
Nicholishen,
SC (high sticking), 14:43.
SHOTS ON GOAL
Trenton 8 14 16--38
South Carolina 15 5 5--25
Power Play Conversions: Trenton - 0 of 4, South Carolina - 2 of 6.
Goalies:
Trenton-Stirling (14 shots, 11 saves), Murphy (11-11). South
Carolina-Daubenspeck
(38 shots-36 saves).
A: 8804.
POST
AND COURIER
Right before the start of the 1999-2000
season, the folk at Just Hockey magazine picked South Carolina to win the
East
Coast Hockey League’s Kelly Cup championship and Dave Seitz to be named the
most valuable player during
the playoffs.
As it turned out, they were only a year off.
South Carolina scored three goals in the
first period and held off a furious rally to beat Trenton, 3-2, and capture the
franchise’s second ECHL championship Sunday night before a crowd of 8,834 at
the North Charleston Coliseum.
The Stingrays, who last won the ECHL title
in 1997, ousted the Titans, the Northern Conference champions, in five
games,
4-1.
For Seitz, who led all scorers in the
playoffs with 28 points, Sunday’s victory was sweet redemption for the player
who
struggled putting the puck in the net during the regular season.
“I didn’t have the kind of regular
season that I wanted,” said Seitz, who finished with 13 goals and 15 assists
during
the playoffs. “But I’ll tell you what, this makes everything all
worth while. To be able to hoist the (Kelly Cup) over your
head at the end of
the night and skate around the ice was probably one of the greatest feelings in
the world. I can’t put
it into words. You could pick any of the 20 guys in
this locker room as MVP. There are other people who deserve this
thing as much
as I do.”
“I just happened to get hot at the right
time of the year. From the opening series on, I was confident. That was the
biggest
difference from the regular season. When I shot the puck I felt like it
had a good chance of going in.”
Seitz, who had just 14 goals during the
regular season, finished the postseason with four game-winning goals, including
three against the Titans.
“He was the difference in the series,”
South Carolina coach Rick Adduono said. “I didn’t want to say anything about
Dave Seitz until the series was over because he still had a job to do, but the
kind of hockey he played during the playoffs
was phenomenal. Every shift he was
on the ice, he was dangerous. That’s what we expected from Dave Seitz,
that’s what
we’ve come to expect from him in the playoffs and he delivered.
“Everything he get. Every award he
receives in the postseason, he deserves. He didn’t have the kind of regular
season
that he wanted. I know that. But he continued to work hard and he
improved and this is the result. He’s the most valuable
player of the
playoffs. He’s won a championship. It doesn’t get any better than this.”
The Stingrays didn’t make it easy on themselves.
For the second straight game, the Stingrays
jumped to an early 3-0 lead only to watch Trenton crawl its way back into the
game with two goals, one in the first and second periods. On Thursday, the
Stingrays squandered 3-0 and 5-3 leads, only
to win the game 6-5.
“I really wasn’t that nervous when they
got those two goals,” South Carolina goalie Kirk Daubenspeck said. “We were
playing well defensively, we just had a couple of lapses that led to their
goals. I was a lot more confident tonight than I
was on Thursday. It was like
we’d been here before and we knew we could win.”
The final 90 seconds lasted an eternity for
Adduono and the rest of the Stingrays. Trenton had two solid chances to
score,
but Jared Bednar blocked one shot and Daubenspeck came up with a glove save with
23.4 seconds left to ensure
the win.
“Those last two minutes were insane,”
Bednar said. “We were doing everything we could to keep them out of the net.
We
were hitting people. We were grabbing people. We were holding sticks,
anything that we could do. It was the longest
minute of my life in hockey. We
did that Thursday night to win, so I felt like we could do it again. We had the
people on
the ice to get the job done and we did it. We did that a lot in the
series.”
When the buzzer sounded the Stingrays’ gloves, helmets, and sticks flew into the air and the bench emptied.
“I still don’t know where my stuff
is,” said defenseman Brad Dexter, who was on the Stingray’s championship
squad in
1997. “But I really don’t care. The first (Kelly Cup) was great. I
think the new guys are a little spoiled because I don’t
think they realize
that this doesn’t happen every year. But the feeling is indescribable.”
THE GOALS
South Carolina jumped to a 1-0 lead for the
fifth straight time in the series on Zach Ham’s goal just 1:41 into the
opening period.
Joel Irving got the puck on the left side,
slid it into the slot to Ham, who beat Trenton goalie Scott Stirling between
his
legs for the score.
The Stingrays grabbed a 2-0 lead on Chad Remackel’s power-play goal five minutes into the first period.
Defenseman Ryan Brindley took a slapshot
from the point that Stirling failed to control. Remackel was there for the
rebound and the score.
South Carolina extended its advantage to 3-0
on Adam Calder’s power-play with six minutes left in the first period.
Calder’s initial shot was blocked. The puck came back to him and he wristed it
past Stirling for the score.
Trenton closed the gap to 3-1 on Steve
O’Brien’s goal with less than five minutes left in the first period. Alain
St. Hilaire
cut the margin to 3-2 with his goal seven minutes into the second
period.