Jensen gets high school hockey goal of the year
There were only two candidates
The Colorado Amateur High School Association held a poll allowing fans to vote on the best high school goal of the season. While, of course, there were eight wonderful, worthy candidates, let’s be honest. There really were only two contenders.
• Goal. No. 1 as it appears on the site: Battle Mountain’s Jensen Rawlings flutters a prayer to force overtime.
• Goal No. 2 as it appears on the site: Battle Mountain’s Wyatt Horn(/Hunter Davis) gives Battle Mountain an extra push to claim the Class 4A title.
Rawlings won the poll with 40% of the vote for his thrilling prayer of a shot while getting crushed by two Crested Butte defenders in the state title game. That goal evened the game at four and sent it to overtime.
And in overtime, Wyatt Horn/Hunter Davis scored the game winner, which only received 10% of the vote. First of all, shame on you, Colorado. Second of all, these two goals should have ended in 50-50 tie.
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And, third, if you’re wondering about Wyatt Horn. Yes, he still has the official score for the fifth goal in Battle Mountain’s 5-4 victory over Crested Butte in the title game.
Watch the replay — my eyes have crossed rewatching it. Davis shoots the puck over the Titans’ goalie’s shoulder, and it knuckles ever so slowly toward the goal line. (Far too slowly for Huskies fans’ tastes.)
As the puck works its way toward the goal line, Horn rightly charges toward the left post because he’s going to smash the puck in if it doesn’t go in, gosh-darn-it. Horn, of course, is doing everything he should be doing. He’s crashing because there could be a rebound. He’s crashing because it’s distracting to the goalie. He’s crashing because he’s just being annoying.
By the way, Horn is a wonderfully annoying player. He’s a pain in the rear if he’s on the other team. He’s awesome if he’s on your team as the Huskies know. For all his hustle, I don’t think you can say that he got his stick on the puck in overtime vs Crested Butte.
It appears that the Crested Butte goale, realizing the puck is behind him, reflexively pulls his stick behind his back to try to stop the puck from crossing the line, and accidentally knocks it over the line in the process. Thus, we give the goal to Davis.
However, one judges who scored what or how many votes each goal got, the Huskies are the state champions for the first time in 20 years.
What’s more, everyone can celebrate on Wednesday with the parade in Eagle at 6:30 p.m.
