(Suzy L’Hommedieu’21. (Josh Tu’21/Staff)

On Friday, February 14, our boys and girls played in their first round of the CBJ Cup tournament, the Capital Hockey Conference’s annual tournament to determine the winner of the conference. Playing at the Ice Haus, attached to Nationwide Arena, the 14 seeded Vikes took on 11 seeded Springboro.

The game started off with a first-period deadlock. It wasn’t until sophomore Andrew Zaki assisted junior Campbell Gwin with 1:56 left in the first that the tie was broken. 

Going into the second, the game continued to be even. The scoreline came to reflect this less than two minutes into the period when Springboro tied up the match. But only a few minutes later, Academy restored its lead with senior Phillip Soderberg scoring from Gwin. Then, a couple minutes after this goal, junior Luke Budzik added to the Vikes’ lead off an assist from sophomore Jake Carlin.  Springboro pulled one back with three minutes to go in the period. Just before the end of the second, sophomore Max Walker made it 4-2 for the Vikes as they headed into the locker room before the third.

In the final period of regulation play, Springboro quickly scored twice to tie the game up at four. The Panthers were not going down without a fight. The rest of the period was hard fought and each team scored one more, with Budzik off an assist from sophomore Allen Koganov-responsible for Academy’s goal to end the third period tied at 5.

Seeing as this was tournament play, a tie score at the end of regulation play meant sudden death overtime. Sadly for the Vikes, after a hard fought and even game, Springboro found the net first and won the match 6-5.

Next Saturday, February 22, 18 seeded Academy will look to bounce back in the OHSAA tournament against 19 seeded Sycamore at the Ice Haus.