By Kyle Wannen
For DigitalSports.com

Earlier in the regular season when Whitman played Churchill, they were defeated 10-3 in a game where the Vikings trailed almost the entire time.

On Saturday the Vikings (9-3) came out with a fire seeking revenge against the Bulldogs, and emerged victorious with a 11-7 victory in the second round of the playoffs.

"We knew that we didn't play our best the first time we played them and we thought the game wasn't indicative of the way it should have been," Vikings coach Kevin Pope said.

The Vikings were "just thinking about our loss in the regular season," attackman Will Deutsch said. "We lost to them 10-3 and we wanted to get back in there and beat them this time."

Early in the first quarter, Whitman scored back-to-back goals by Larry Kline and Peter Garafalo within 20 seconds of each other to take a 2-1 lead. Patrick Slawta scored four minutes later to increase their lead to 3-1 and they never trailed again.

Whitman repeated their high performance in the second quarter with another three-goal result and they took a 6-4 lead into halftime. In the third quarter attackman Will Deutsch took over as he scored two goals and assisted on another goal to help build the Vikings' lead to 11-7 heading into the final quarter.

When asked what he was thinking during the quarter, Deutsch replied, "Put the ball in the goal. Finish the game, you know?"

"I love Will," Pope said. "He's one of our younger guys and he's going to be a great player."

With the Bulldogs (8-4) pressing in the fourth quarter with a barrage of shots, Vikings goalie Carson Kline took over as he made multiple saves and held Churchill without a goal during the quarter to ensure the victory. Kline finished with 15 saves.

"All I was thinking was I didn't want to go home losing this game," Kline said. "I knew we worked really hard in practice this week. I just took it to the next level, made sure we won this game. I still had my intensity level pretty high so I was trying to step it up."

"Carson Kline is now a goalie," Pope said. "He's a former football player we got out there. He's a great athlete and he's really come on. He had a great game today. His actions speak for themselves."

Churchill was led by three goals from attackman Matt Risk and two goals from midfielder Will Ellis. Goalie Griffin Farha finished with nine saves.