LITTLETON — Coming on the heels of a blowout loss to Regis Jesuit, Columbine’s hockey team looked a bit lethargic in the early going Wednesday night against Standley Lake.
The Gators jumped out to a 2-1 lead in the first period, capitalizing on a shorthanded goal, and the seventh-ranked Rebels entered the locker room at the first intermission needing a pick-me-up.
“We just told the guys they need to figure out how to play a complete game. We haven’t really had a strong full-three period effort for a long time,” Columbine coach Chris Gassman said. “We just said, ‘It’s about time to start showing everybody in the league that we can be a contender.’”
The Rebels did just that, taking the lead with two second-period goals in a span of 53 seconds en route to a 5-2 victory over the Gators at Edge Ice Arena. The victory keeps Columbine (8-3-1, 5-2 in the Foothills League) in the mix with the league contenders headed into a big game Friday against No. 5 Cherry Creek.
Junior Jacob Seibold led the way with his first hat trick of the season, and Logan Seibold had assists on each of Jacob’s three goals.
“It was vital that we got this win,” Jacob Seibold said. “We’re looking to go into the next game and take that one too and just keep going from there.”
After going 5-0-1 before the holiday break, Columbine had just two victories in its previous five games and was coming off a 6-0 loss to the Raiders. Standley Lake (5-5-1, 3-3) took control quickly Wednesday, with Topher Carroll scoring off the assist from Andrew Coca.
Seibold knotted it up less than a minute later, but with Columbine on the power play, Coca sprinted down the ice on a breakaway, deked to his right and beat Rebels goalie Ashton Opperman to the left to make it 2-1.
Seibold said Columbine hasn’t been a great first-period team, but the players realized they needed to turn things around.
“We knew we came out slow,” he said. “The coaches left the locker room and the leaders on the team hyped up the team and we just came out with a bunch of energy.”
Seibold tied it up again with 10:54 left in the second period, and 53 seconds later it was senior Mehedi Boudhaouia’s turn to find the back of the net. Standley Lake picked up a major for checking from behind, and within a minute the Rebels had a 5-on-3 advantage. Andrew Wright made it 4-2 with a power-play goal.
The Gators were whistled for eight penalties over the final two periods and fought off two more 5-on-3 situations, but Seibold added a power-play goal late in the third period to wrap things up. Opperman made a number of stops to deny Standley Lake over the final 45-plus minutes.
“They’re a good team and we just had to stay poised,” Seibold said. “We had to stay disciplined and we just worked on getting the puck in the net.”
The junior now has 11 goals on the season and Gassman said the Rebels tend to go as he does.
“Jake kind of started out a little bit slow but he started to pick it up a little bit, figuring out the type of leader he can be on this team,” Gassman said. “When he decides to play the whole team kind of follows him. That’s the type of (game) we need out of him every night.”
Standley Lake visits No. 3 Monarch on Friday and No. 8 Dakota Ridge on Jan. 31, part of a stretch of five-consecutive games against ranked opponents. Columbine plays the Eagles on Jan. 29.
The team has long since surpassed last season’s total of five wins, but the Rebels aren’t resting on their laurels.
“We are proud of what we’ve done, but we always try to say that we’re only as good as the last game we played,” Gassman said. “We played pretty well at the beginning and got a few wins under our belts early and kind of got a little comfortable, maybe a little complacent.
“We’ve been kind of fighting that back the last week or so.”
