Blue Jackets Cup tournament matches area's best high school teams

There is a lot at stake this weekend as the Blue Jackets Cup will award a championship to one Central Ohio high school team.
The end-of-season tournament for the Capital Hockey Conference will crown the top program in the area for the season, and there's no doubt it means a lot to the teams competing to lift the trophy at the end of the day.
"We do this for the CBJ Cup," said Kevin Alexander, head coach of the CHC regular-season champion Olentangy Liberty program. "I know a lot of people outside of high school hockey don't think the CBJ Cup is a big deal. I can tell you, being the team that has lost that final CBJ Cup game and watching our boys bawling their eyes out, the seniors especially standing at the blue line waiting to get their medals, I can't express that enough (how important this tournament is)."

And this year's tournament, which is presented by OhioHealth, should be highly competitive. It was a battle in the regular season, with Liberty emerging with a 15-1-0 record in league play to earn the title, and the expectations are with four teams ranked in the state's top 10, that will continue on to the tournament.
Liberty leads the way in the state rankings at No. 5, while Upper Arlington -- the two-time defending CBJ Cup champion -- is ranked sixth after finishing second in the CHC. Third-place Olentangy Berlin occupies the No. 8 spot in the state rankings, while fourth-place St. Charles is No. 10.
And for those who have spent a lot of time in high school hockey in the area, they see the quality of hockey in central Ohio going up as one would expect given those lofty spots on the rankings.
"We just keep getting better and better here in Columbus," Upper Arlington coach Hamish Baird said. "With the top four teams -- Liberty, Berlin, Upper Arlington and St. Charles -- they are all highly competitive games, and anybody can win those games. All of the teams have a great amount of talent and experience and good coaching."
"I feel like a Central Ohio team potentially is good enough this year to maybe win it all," St. Charles coach Rob Sangster added.
But before that happens, the CBJ Cup will allow one team to celebrate a title in a tournament-style venue. Quarterfinal action in the varsity division begins tonight with four games, as Olentangy Liberty (15-1-0 CHC Red) will take on eighth-seeded Thomas Worthington (10-6-0 CHC White) at Chiller North, Upper Arlington (13-3-0 CHC Red) will battle seventh-seeded Cincinnati St. Xavier (10-5-0-1 CHC White) at Chiller Dublin, Berlin (12-3-1 CHC Red) will take on sixth-seeded Dublin Jerome (10-5-1 CHC White) at Chiller Dublin and St. Charles (10-5-1 CHC Red) will battle No. 5-seed Cincinnati Moeller (5-8-1-1 CHC Red) at Chiller North.
Semifinals will then be held Saturday at Chiller North and Chiller Dublin, with the title game scheduled for Sunday at 2 p.m. at Chiller North.
Olentangy Liberty enters as the top seed having won 14 games in a row, including 13 straight conference games after a Dec. 10 loss vs. Berlin. The next weekend, the team went 1-1-2 at a tournament hosted by Parma Padua, which turned out to be a turning point for the campaign.
"We left Padua with our tail between our legs," Alexander said. "We had very little player buy-in from all ends of the ice. We changed the forecheck a little bit, we changed a couple of our systems, and for some reason we started to have a little success. We went from zero buy-in and guys not working that hard in games, and something clicked with a little bit of success. We somehow went from a pretty average team that the kids didn't believe, the coaches were questioning, to where now we have this incredible buy-in that I've never seen before."
Liberty is led by Sully Plancon's 40 points (12 goals, 28 assists), while Gage Schlotterbeck has a team-best 28 goals among his 38 points. Freshman Jake Struck adds a 14-23-37 line during a breakout campaign, while Eric Bauermeister has eight goals and 32 points on the year. Brian Savage (14 goals) and Jacob Kempa (12) are also in double digits in tallies, while goaltender Benton "Bubba" Roberts is 21-5-3 with a 2.14 GAA and .907 save percentage.
Schlotterbeck, Plancon and Shane Flanagan (9-12-21) are team captains, and the squad hopes to win the Blue Jackets Cup for the first time since 2011.
"We've had a little bit of a Buffalo Bills complex where we've been second place in the league, we have lost a bunch of CBJ Cup finals, so I can't tell a lie -- it's been cool to be 15-1-0 and to have won the Red Division and the league," Alexander said. "It's been the most fun run that we've been on in Liberty hockey since I've been around the program."
Upper Arlington won't give up its two-year reign on the Cup easily, though. Last year's Columbus district champion and state semifinalist is led by one of the top lines in the state with Sam Burns posting an incredible 45-39-84 line, Max Robins adding 29 goals and 38 assists for 67 points, and Charlie Linzell totaling 13 goals and 30 points.
Burns and Sam Cannon (6-22-28) are the team captains, while there is depth in the form of Noah Domagalski (11-19-30) and Carson Gresock (6-7-13 in 14 games). In net, the team has replaced the graduated all-state goalie Garrett Alderman with the duo of Preston Bernard and Brady Hagkull.
The Golden Bears have played some of the top teams in the state and beaten third-ranked Lakewood St. Edward, fourth-ranked Gilmour Academy and one of the top teams in Michigan, Flint Powers. UA also comes in on a roll having won seven straight games.
"I am really proud of our guys," Baird said "I think they have really come together as a team. We have a good culture and a good group. It's a tight room, and I think those types of things matter when it's the third period and it's a close game. They have a lot of confidence and trust in each other."
Berlin, meanwhile, was in the running for a conference title in just the school's fourth year of existence, and what was once a young group has matured into a contender under head coach Tim Pennington. Zach Zielinski and Luke DeChristopher remain from the original team, but there has been tremendous buy-in from everyone in building Berlin into one of the tops in not just the area but the state.
"It's awesome," Pennington said. "Our first year, all we had was freshmen and sophomores and a couple of juniors. I remember in our district tournament game, we played Liberty and we got outshot 80-2 in the game because we were down to seven players at the end of because of injuries and being a new school.
"For us to be where we are right now, ranked in the top 10 in the state, I'm just proud of our guys and where they've come. Our whole motto all along has been 'we, not me,' and it really is a very unselfish team that we have here."
Pennington also pointed to depth and speed as being the hallmarks of his team, and it helps to have tremendous offensive ability from team captain Carson Jankowski. The senior has a team-best 34 goals and 65 points including four hat tricks on the season, while Zielinski -- who scored the first goal in program history -- has 31 tallies among his 42 points and Nick Piccioni has a 23-46-69 line. Tyler Abare (16-23-39) and Chris Brennan (15-17-32) add scoring depth, while goalie Kai Nelson has been "unbelievable" in the words of Pennington.
St. Charles, meanwhile, was hit hard by graduation losses from last year's CBJ Cup and district runner-up but still has played some good hockey. The hope for the Cardinals will be to turn close losses into wins, as St. Charles is a combined 0-6-1 vs. Liberty, Berlin and UA on the year, but four of the losses were by two goals or less. St. Charles also pushed No. 2-ranked Toledo St. Francis to overtime before a 1-0 loss earlier this year.
"We're right there, and on any given day if we play good, tight defense and crash the net, get pucks deep and get a little bit of puck luck and some good bounces and create some energy, particularly for us early in games, we have a shot against anyone," Sangster said as his team chases its first Blue Jackets Cup win since 2014.
The team's strength is in an experienced defensive corps led by senior goalies Cooper Tyson and Grand Wolf as well as a trio of senior defensemen in Sam Mickey (8-18-26), Erich Schoettmer (9-9-18) and Tristan Fahs (1-13-14). Up front, Lou McKinney has a team-best 22 goals among his 30 points, while brother Myles adds 19 goals and Quinn Brady has 17.
More hockey action: There is also a consolation bracket for varsity programs that began earlier this week and is down to a final eight - No. 9-seed Olentangy Orange, No. 10 Dublin Coffman, No. 11 New Albany, No. 12 Olentangy, No. 13 Gahanna, No. 14 Worthington Kilbourne, No. 15 Columbus Academy and No. 18 Columbus DeSales. The title game will be staged Sunday at Chiller North at 5 p.m.
On the JV side, the tournament has progressed to the semifinals, where top-seeded Liberty and fourth-seeded Upper Arlington will clash Saturday, as will sixth-seeded St. Charles and No. 2 St. Xavier. The final will be Sunday at 11 a.m. at Chiller IceWorks.
At the club level, the Ohio Scholastic Hockey League will also stage its Blue Jackets Cup tournament this weekend, with quarterfinals Friday, semifinals Saturday and the final Sunday at 6 p.m. at the Ice Haus. The Dayton Stealth has the top seed and a bye after going 14-0-3 this year in league play and outscoring teams 132-22. The Hilliard Wildcats are next at 10-4-3 followed by the Newark Generals (9-7-1), Miami Red Hawks (8-9-1), the Northeast Storm (7-9-1), the Westerville Warcats (7-11-0) and the Pickerington Prowlers (1-16-1).
(Photo courtesty of Lisa Rengel)