After becoming a team just five years ago, the Liberty Eagles Hockey Club only had a JV team their first two years as a club. In the 2023-24 season, the team got a varsity team and were put in the division where they competed for the Founders Cup. That season, Liberty won the Founders Cup playoffs, bringing Liberty their first varsity Founders Cup win. Last season, the team made it all the way to the Founders Cup Championship game, beating teams they hadn’t played before that season. In the championship game, the Eagles unfortunately lost 4-2 against Fort Zumwalt East. This season, Mid States Club Hockey Association changed the divisions up, putting Liberty in the Wickenheiser Cup playoffs. 

During the regular season, Liberty played 19 of 20 scheduled games games, their last one getting canceled due to the winter storm. They ended the season with a record od 12-3-4, winning 12 games, losing 3, and tying 4. They had 28 points and were second in their division, behind Francis Howell. 

In the Wickenheiser Cup Playoffs, Liberty will play each team in their Pool one time. There are four Pools: A, B, C, and D. Liberty is in Pool C, along with Parkway West, Webster Groves, and MICDS. After all games between each Pool are complete, the top two teams from each Pool will move on to the next round of playoffs. 

On Saturday night, Liberty played their first game of the first round, against MICDS and cruised to a 3-0 shutout victory. 

“I think our team played really good overall today, a lot of blocked shots, capitalizing on opportunities,” Zach Pruss (12) said.

The game got off to a slow start, with not much happening until 5:41 in the first, when Greyson Howarth (12) got a 2-minute minor penalty for roughing. While short-handed Lucas Kempf (12) got Liberty’s first goal of the night, assisted by Connor Casella (11). This was also the game winning goal. 

The action started earlier in the second period, with Garrett Katz (11) getting a 2-minute minor penalty for slashing at 12:44. Casella and MICDS then followed with matching 2-minute minors for roughing at 10:06. MICDS then got another roughing minor on top of that at 8:52. On the power play, Pruss scored Liberty’s second of the game at 8:04, with the assist going to Kempf. 

“I think we played really good, like defensively and offensively in the neutral zone,” Ethan Peters (9) said. “Sometimes in the D zone, we didn’t cover people in front of the net, which could have caused a goal, but luckily stilled played great.”

Like the previous periods, the third period started of with a penalty for Liberty. Nicholas Kuhn got a 2-minute minor for tripping at 13:18 to start the period. After that penalty, it was a quiet period until 2:43, when Josiah Ditch (11) got the last goal of the game, assisted by Ethan Peters (9).

MICDS then got a penalty at 1:37 for slashing, followed by matching penalties at 0:33 on Pruss and MICDS for slashing.

Brayden Dill (10) also got a shutout this game, stopping all 45 shots he faced.

“I think I played great all around,” Dill said. “I mean, I could have improved on rebound control a little better and just kicking pucks out to the guys and having second chance opportunities.”

Throughout the game, players and coaches were very vocal on the bench, encouraging and supporting one and other.