Gary Defina
Gary Defina
beat rest second seed separated team teams themselves
There's one team that has separated themselves from the rest of the pack, and that's Cheyenne Mountain. But from the second seed to the 12th, all of those teams are very competitive and can beat anyone.
expected gifted happened knew leadership learn next position skills talent took top ups year
His skills are top shelf. He's a gifted player. He's got that God-given talent that you can't teach. This year, he took on more of a leadership role. He knew that was expected of him. Obviously, he had his ups and downs, but he's going to learn from what happened to him this year and be in a better position next year.
gotten high played school stronger sure
He had never really played high school hockey, and then he was our No. 1 guy, so he was a little rattled, and I'm sure a little nervous. But he's gotten stronger and stronger.
growing knew momentum playing
It's huge. Like we said, we started off slow. We knew we were going to have some growing pains, but we're peaking at the right time. We're right where we want to be. We have some momentum and we're playing well.
beginning behind good team
It's kind of the same as the beginning of the year. It's a young team with jitters at the beginning of the playoffs. They don't have a lot of experience. But it's good to get that one behind us.
goal kids shift
That's the way kids will think when you are down like that. You try to tell them to take it one shift at a time, one goal at time, but, you know, we didn't get it done.
gave goal great hands left night rebounds seconds shift
He usually swallows his rebounds or hands it off to the defense. The other night (against Rampart) he gave up a goal with 50 seconds left in the game, and it went into overtime. In the first shift of overtime, he made a great save, and we went back down and scored.
beat guys hard liberty needed obviously took worked
They worked hard when they needed to. (Liberty) is obviously struggling. These guys did what it took to beat that team.
beginning expected heck nobody run
Nobody expected us to be here from the beginning of the season. We had a heck of a run at the end of the season.
bad came half
In about half of our games, we've had bad first periods, but not tonight. We came out flying, and that's what we need to do from here on out.
bad ice last time wants
He's the first one on the ice and the last one off every time we skate. He wants it so bad - he really wants to improve.
best game good played running spent time zone
Defensively, we were running around a little bit. We spent a little too much time in our zone today. We got away from our game plan. We played down to their level. That's the best way to put it. Then again, it was good enough to win.
either fun gone great hockey matched
It was a great hockey game. It was fun for us to watch. There were two evenly matched teams, and it could have gone either way.
emotions focusing job nice talks toward
We had some talks about that this week, about controlling his emotions, and focusing them toward the opponent, and not the refs. He did a nice job of that tonight.