COLORADO SPRINGS – Noah Bonnett figured it would take more than just one goal to get Cheyenne Mountain into the Class 4A hockey semifinals.
So he put five on it.
Not even midway through the second period, Bonnett had a hat trick in hand and added two more goals for good measure to give the No. 1-seeded Red-Tailed Hawks an 8-1 win over No. 8 Aspen at Sertich Ice Center.
With the win, the Hawks move into the 4A semifinals where they’ll take on Steamboat Springs at noon on Thursday.
“We came out excited, we came out nervous but once it settled in, the guys started playing our brand of hockey,” Cheyenne Mountain coach Erik Austin said. “We were sharing the puck, moving the puck and having fun doing it.”
The fun may have come a bit later than he or the players were hoping. Cheyenne Mountain and Aspen came out trading early scoring opportunities and it was the Skiers who had a 6-5 edge in shots on goal in the first period.
But the Hawks made one count. Bonnett scored his first goal of the game with 7:15 left in the first period. The only reason that Aspen trailed after one was goalie Jeremy Renholm turning away each shot he faced.
“You never want to make (an early) mistake that could cost you the game,” Renholm said. “It’s nerve-racking.”
Holding his ground allowed the Hawks to really settle in, move the puck and find their open shots. Their four goals in the second period came in a span of just over five minutes and it seemingly put the game out of reach for the Skiers.
“All my linemates, I got into position to where they could give me the puck and they got into positions where I could give them the puck,” Bonnett said. “We were creating space and opportunities and luckily we were able to bury a few.”
The one slip-up came early in the third period when Charles Rondeau finally got the puck by Renholm. But it wasn’t going to be enough.
And now the Hawks get a chance to head to a big hockey venue and erase the memory of last year’s letdown in the semifinals against Crested Butte. That game was a learning experience for the players that should come in handy when they take the ice at Magness Arena on Thursday.
“It was really interesting last year, they had never been in a big game and they had never been in a big arena,” Austin said. “You could tell in our play. We told our guys that we’ve been there before and we know what it feels like so we can just go play our game of hockey.”
Instead of being in awe at where they’re playing, they’re using the pressure of trying to win Cheyenne Mountain’s first state hockey title since 2014 to power them through this bracket.
“The pressure motivated us, but it didn’t paralyze us today,” Bonnett said. “We rolled right through and once we found our momentum, we were rolling.”
Cheyenne Mountain’s clash against Steamboat at 12 p.m. on Thursday kicks off a full day of semifinal games. Both the 4A and 5A championship games will be set when it’s all said and done, then the action will move to Ball Arena on March 8 where the state champions will be crowned.
