The Lewis-Palmer hockey team will face Peak Conference rival Cheyenne Mountain in today’s state semifinals after a week that must have felt tragically familiar.

Rangers coach Steve Fillo missed practice Monday to be with his sister in Connecticut — “to say goodbye,” as he put it, since she has cancer. This only six months removed from losing his son Stevie in an automobile accident after club hockey practice at the University of Alabama.

“It’s all about the Fillo family, the strength they’ve showed us through this whole thing has been absolutely amazing,” junior goaltender Brent Schwarz said after Saturday’s 3-0 victory over Air Academy, which moved them to the 8:30 p.m. game today at the Broomfield Event Center. “Their strength is unreal. It has inspired us this season.’’

Four weeks ago, however, that season was in disarray.

With three losses in four games, the team’s relative youth was showing and its considerable talent was not. Perhaps the tragic undercurrent was becoming as much strain as strength. Fingers were pointing, and in the wrong direction.

“A lot of internal conflicts, a lot of kids blaming each other,” captain Brandon Roseboro said.

The Rangers (15-3-3), last year’s state runners-up, have but four seniors this season. And they’re not really physically imposing, so that places a premium on skill, positioning and puck movement.

None of which was being utilized with any consistency.

“You only have a 19-game schedule,” Fillo said, pausing at one point to compose himself. “The kind of maturity you like to see in a minor-league hockey team takes 40 games. We’ve only got 19.’’

The Rangers made it in 12.

“It has been a growing experience,” Fillo said Saturday after the team’s ninth straight victory.

They were words that could be taken on several levels. But he said them in the context of his hockey team’s season — and its immediate future, its third straight trip to the state semifinals.

“I’ve got a goalie who can steal a game, I’ve got two lines that can score. I like my chances,’’ he said.

Air Academy was the last team to beat the Rangers, winning 3-1 in January.

“I think L-P … I’d put my money on them right now,” Kadets coach Dave Meisinger said.

Those fingers of a month ago now are pointing inward.

“This means even more to us then it would normally,” junior Kyle Lee said. “We’re playing for our coach; we’re playing for his family. It’s just good that we’re playing for something.”

That is a notion about which Fillo clearly is uncomfortable.

“I told the kids when you’re trying to win a state championship, you go for yourself, you don’t do it for somebody else,’’ he said.

Too late.

“It was getting pretty teary-eyed in there,” Roseboro said almost haltingly after Saturday’s victory. “Memories of Stevie and this game and everything … this is a pretty big deal for us. This is really important.’’

Lewis-Palmer hockey coach Steve Fillo Photo by CHRISTIAN MURDOCK, THE GAZETTE