04/07/2001

By Damien Pierce / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN – There were about a million things Southlake Carroll goalie B.J. Cotton would have preferred to be doing during his team's first-round high school hockey state playoff game against Midland.

Playing was one of them.

Despite being on the ice, Cotton watched nearly the entire contest without breaking a sweat as the Dragons controlled the puck offensively to coast to a 4-0 victory over Midland on Friday. The city champions and top seed of the double-elimination tournament will meet Plano East in the quarterfinals Saturday after getting a second-round bye.

"This first game was kind of boring," Cotton said. "There are some good things about them not attacking me, but I like my job. I just wish they could have taken a few more shots at me so that I would have felt like I actually was in the game."

The Bulldogs (17-1) fired only four shots in the game, three of which were defended by Cotton. In fact, Midland didn't get a shot off until halfway through the first period as players usually found themselves skating backwards to play defense.

Carroll (21-1-1) just wouldn't stop being the aggressor on the ice and didn't give the Bulldogs much of a chance to connect against Cotton.

"Our guys were just bigger and faster than their guys, so we just held the puck," Carroll coach Thomas Jacobowski said. "It was sort of like a practice game for us. There isn't a nice way to put it."

That much was obvious in the first period as Carroll netted three goals in the first six minutes. Michael Casey, Ryan Hopkins and Jeff Kraemer each scored.

After those goals, Carroll seemed to put it into cruise control for the remainder of the contest as only Christopher Tyrrell added to the lead in the second period.

"It's satisfying to get the win," Tyrrell said. "But I thought we could have scored a few more times. We're going to have to if we're going to win this thing."

Carroll will meet Plano East in the quarterfinals at 7:30 Saturday morning. The Panthers advanced to face Carroll by knocking off Arlington, 6-1, in the second round.

Ryan Osterheldt, J.P. Pruneau and Brett Turner each had a pair of goals for Plano East.

Arlington, which won a first-round game against Clements, 5-1, drops to the loser's bracket, where it faces Clements again.

Lewisville lost in the first round to Cy-Fair, 3-1.