Davison competes at Public League showcase

Davison’s Kyle Workman (15) clears the puck away as David Arterburn (30) and Bobby Crawford (7) protect the net. Photo by Lisa Paine CHELSEA — In preparation for a host of season-ending challenges that includes playing Flushing/Carman- Ainsworth at Iceland Arena this Saturday for the final Big Nine varsity hockey title ever, Davison took part in the Michigan Public High School Hockey showcase last weekend at the Arctic Coliseum. While being the 23rd ranked team in the state for Div. 2 according to the United States High School Hockey Organization would have seemed to bode well for the Cardinals coming into this event, the rest of the field was just and talented and instead sent Davison home with a pair of losses.

Last Friday, this two-day event started for the Cardinals against 24th-ranked West Bloomfield, which took early control by jumping out to leads of 2-0 and 3-0 at the end of the first and second periods on its way to defeating Davison, 6-1. It was at 15:17 and 5:17 of the opening session that West Bloomfield got things going offensively, setting up the squad’s third goal at 6:31 of the second. Things didn’t get any better for Davison in the third, either, as West Bloomfield scored at 13:38 before posting a power-play goal at 10:24 to make it a 5-0 game.

That’s when Steven Stull finally got the Cardinals on the scoreboard at the 9:28 mark with a little help from Alex Dunckel, but instead of launching a comeback, West Bloomfield answered at 5:56 to go up 6-1 and never looked back. On the other side of the equation for Davison David Arterburn started the game in net and made 15 saves on 20 shots before getting pulled at 6:36 of the third, allowing Jake Rye to step in and swat down four of the five shots he faced in a little over 10 minutes of playing time.

What that set the stage for was a matchup last Saturday with East Kentwood, the 23rd-ranked team in Div. 1, and while the Cardinals did play a strong opening stanza, they still wound up getting downed, 6-3. Opening the scoring for Davison at 13:36 of the first period unassisted was Josh Hill, setting up Brandon Pirtle to make the score 2-0 on passes from Stull and Dunckel at 5:38. It was a much dif- ferent game after that, because East Kentwood stepped up the tempo in the second and held the Cardinals in check long enough to hit nothing but net at 13:37 and 7:00 to tie things up at 2-2.

In the third, Davison continued to skate hard, but poor defense and too much individual offensive play led to East Kentwood going up for good at 16:19 and 15:26 unassisted. While the Cardinals did answer back after Hill conneceted at 6:28 to make it a onescore contest at 4-3 on the assist by Drew VanDePutte, East Kentwood’s response was to light the lamp at 6:06 and 4:46, the second of which came with a man advantage.

Defensively for Davison, Arterburn once again got the starting nod and stopped 19 of the 24 shots he was faced prior to getting yanked at 1:34 of the third in favor of Rye, who saw nine shots and stopped seven.

The Cardinals, 11-9-1 overall, 1-1-1 Big Nine, hosted Swartz Creek at Perani Arena in Flint yesterday and are at Brighton on Wednesday.