BY DENNIS CHASE
TRAVERSE CITY -- Traverse City Central brings out the best in Shane Totten.
The Traverse City West senior scored a hat-trick Wednesday night to power the Titans to a 6-1 Big North Conference hockey win over the Trojans at a lively Howe Arena.
"To put up three goals in the last Central game of my career, and to get a big win, that's a sweet feeling," Totten said.
It was Totten's second career hat-trick. He netted three goals in a game against Central last season.
"He always shows up in the big games," West coach Jeremy Rintala said. "He's our leader. He's our captain. That's what we need out of him. He was phenomenal tonight. He killed penalties. He blocked shots. And when he had a chance to score he did."
The victory improved West's record to 6-0 in the Big North. The Trojans fell to 5-3.
The Titans, who beat Central 4-2 earlier in the season, also earned the rivalry's Jeff McCullough Memorial Challenge Cup trophy.
West snapped a 1-1 deadlock with two second period goals and never looked back. Nick VandeKieft netted what proved to be the game-winner when he swatted in a rebound less than three minutes into the period. Totten gave the Titans a two-goal cushion when he scored a shorthanded goal with 21 seconds left in the period.
"I cut to the middle and threw it at the net," Totten said. "I didn't even know it went in until I saw my teammates hustling over to me."
The goal was deflating for Central.
"We talked before the game about not giving him (Totten) a lot of space," Central coach Chris Givens said. "He loves to shoot -- and he's a great shooter. You know if he gets inside the dots he's going to let it fly. For whatever reason, we backed off (on that shorthanded rush) and let him cut to the middle and take the shot. It was a bad decision on our part."
To make matters worse, the Trojans, already on a power play, failed to capitalize on a two-man advantage right after Totten's goal.
"Our penalty kill was great," Rintala said. "We killed off that 5-on-3 and that was huge. If they pop one in on that power play then they have all the momentum and it's a one-goal game. That was a huge kill. Then, when we had our own 5-on-3 we made it count -- twice."
The Titans, 10-6 overall, enjoyed a two-man advantage with 12:04 remaining. Less than a minute into the power play, Zach Franklin converted to make it 5-1. Six seconds later, and still with a man advantage, Nate Allgaier tallied to close out the scoring.
"We were still in it starting the third (period) with a 5-on-3," Givens said. "I thought we had some decent looks, but we passed up a couple good chances to shoot. Our decision-making all night was not very good."
Central, 8-10 overall, outshot the Titans 30-26.
"Our teams really match up evenly," Rintala said. "It wasn't a 6-1 game. We got a few good chances and we were lucky enough to bury them."
Nate Wilson was solid in goal, turning aside 29 shots for the Titans.
"He played very well," Rintala said. "He controlled his rebounds. He was square to the shooter. He was focused all night."
Totten staked West to a 1-0 lead with a power play goal just over two minutes into the game. Central tied it just over a minute later when Max Shrank scored a shorthanded goal. That was all the Trojans had to celebrate, though.
"I thought we had a good first period and had some momentum," Givens said. "In the second period you could tell right from that first shift we didn't have the same jump. We couldn't get the momentum back after that."
West made sure of that.
"I thought we played a great game from the goaltender on out," Rintala said. "Everybody played hard, everybody stuck to the plan."
West still must play Cadillac and Gaylord twice to close out the Big North. Cadillac has one league loss.
"We control our own destiny and that's what we want," Rintala said.
