Photo Credit:Charlotte Rush

For the Charlotte Rush, the setup is simple. They need to play one semifinal tomorrow, if they win they play for a national championship in Utica on Tuesday. If they lose, their season is over and a proud organization will spend an offseason looking to get back to where they expect to be, the USPHL Final at the Premier Level. The complexity comes in who they face, the Richmond Generals. Read from Head Coach Troy Schwab on their 2-0 Quarterfinal win over Toledo, and on what people should expect from the rivalry matchup.

“Going into the game I felt confident that our team was prepared and ready for the game. Toledo is a very good team, well coached, and we knew what type of game we were going to get from them. They played us hard and competed at a high level. They made adjustments in their game that we had pre-scouted from previous games. It forced us to adjust our game plan and our players did that and executed our game plan.

To win hockey in the playoffs you need everyone to play well and contribute. Zac Gmerek getting us on the board tonight was huge for us. We encourage our D to jump into holes on the offensive side and that’s what he did. Kreczman who got the second goal is a player who has really stepped up in the playoffs. We told him two months ago he was going to make a difference for us at some point this season and right now he is doing it.

We have two very goalies in Andy and Devin. Both goalies compete and battle at a high level. We have all the confidence in either one of them that they can win us a big time hockey game. Andy has been playing at a high level the last 6 weeks and we expect that to continue.

We know Richmond well. A team we have played and watched a lot this year. I’d expect nothing less than a very intense, emotional, high pace game. Two teams from our division going up against each other in the Semi Final game just goes to show what we all know. Our division is one of if not the best division in the USPHL and it will be on show for everyone to see tomorrow. “

Donate: To help us cover more games and tell more stories not found elsewhere about all of college sports, especially under represented athletes everywhere across the college sports landscape like unique untold stories across college hockey. Please click the below link and consider donating what you can. If you do, I will list you in every story we write as a supporter of crowd-funded journalism that can truly be free for all at this link. 

Donate