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Thunder 18Us host Battle at the REC: Top Hancock in OT

01/10/2023, 3:00pm CST
By Josh Lacy

MARINETTE – The M&M Thunder 18U hockey team hosted the Battle at the REC tournament over the weekend. The Thunder followed their first loss of the season with a tie against Bay Port and a 6-5 win over Hancock thanks to an overtime goal from Ava McDonald.

 

The tournament was played at the Marinette Community REC Center and featured Upper Peninsula teams from Houghton and Hancock as well as squads from Bay Port and Dodgeville High Schools.

The Thunder opened play against Houghton on Friday, and the Gremlins handed the home team its first loss of the season in emphatic fashion with a 10-1 final score. The Gremlins went on to tie Bay Port 4-4 on Saturday and defeat Dodgeville 3-2 in Sunday’s championship game.

“As a young team we played really well,” Thunder coach Alex McDonald said. “The 10-1 loss was an eye-opener, but we came back and tying Bay Port was monumental. We don’t compete against that program historically. We knew that going in, and that was probably the best we have played all year.

“The thing I was most impressed with was that we had a lot of lead changes, and a young team didn’t panic. We stayed with it. We were patient, and our patience paid off.”

Bay Port struck first with an early goal, but Glen Woodworth kept the Pirates off the board for the remainder of the period with six saves. That allowed the Thunder to mount an attack before the first intermission.

With just under two-minutes to play, a power-play goal from Blue Haley tied the game with assists from Ava McDonald and Brayden Rounds. Then, with 8.9 seconds showing on the clock, Addison Lacy gave the Thunder the lead with assists from Damien Winterbottom and Caiden Radtke.

The Pirates got one goal in the second period, and regained the lead with another early in the third.

With 3:40 to play, defensive captain Simon Bowers tied the game with an assist from Broden Krause.

Both teams had scoring opportunities in the closing minutes, but Woodworth came up with 19 saves while his counterpart, Benjamin Knutson, stopped 11 of 14 Thunder shots.

“The secondary scoring we got this weekend was huge,” McDonald said. “Simon is a captain, but we don’t gameplan Simon giving us goals from his position, and we had quite a few give us those secondary scoring options. The people who are supposed to score are going to score all day long, but that secondary scoring wins games and wins championships.”

One more goal against Bay Port would have had the Thunder playing in Sunday’s third-place game. Instead, with 1.5 points in pool play, they took on Hancock in what proved to be a high-speed, high-scoring battle for fifth-place.

“It was a good game,” McDonald said. “Two good hockey teams with some good players. It’s the game we want to play. We see that team again, but these are the teams we want to play to make us better and help us prepare for Dodgeville which is one of the teams we will have to beat in the State Tournament.”

After 51 minutes of regulation, the issue wasn’t decided, so the game rolled into a five-minute three-on-three overtime period.

Midway through the period, Ava McDonald, coach McDonald’s daughter, brought the puck up the ice and passed to Krause who carried it into the offensive zone. Krause then hit McDonald in stride on her way to the net where she finished off a game-winning goal.

“I’m on cloud nine,” coach McDonald said of his daughter’s game-winner. “That was awesome. You can go a whole hockey career without getting an overtime game-winner, so that was pretty fun.”

In the first period, the Thunder opened the scoring with a goal from Haley, and then pushed ahead 3-1 with back-to-back strikes from Krause that came just 30 seconds apart.

The second period was all Hancock as the Bulldogs used a pair of goals to take a 4-3 advantage into the finals stanza.

The game was briefly delayed during the third period after a derogatory insult was hurled at Ava McDonald. The referees conferred and decided not to penalize Hancock for the affront. 

“It was determined by the referees that a warning was sufficient,” coach McDonald said, “but my response to the ref was, ‘keep it coming, it’s only going to fire her up!’

Rounds netted an unassisted goal midway through the frame, but Hancock responded immediately with a goal from Drew Sturos.

With 1:12 to play, Haley knotted the game again, this time with assists from Radtke and Theron Thayer. That goal sent the game to overtime and setup McDonald’s heroics which was made all the sweeter by the insults thrown her way earlier in the game.

The Thunder now stand at 6-1-1 on the season. They will welcome teams from Houghton (Friday and Saturday) and Marquette (Sunday) to the REC Center this weekend. 

BANTAM

The Thunder Bantams took a pair of wins over Fox Valley at the Community REC Center on Saturday with scores of 4-3 and 7-5.

In game one, the Thunder got goals from Wes Baty, Chase Nerat, Natalie Haile and Chuckie Bird.

Game two’s scoring featured hattricks for Nerat and Logan Sakovitz as well as a goal from Sam Miller.

Ethan King made 31 saves in game one, and Alex King stopped ten shots in game two.

PEEWEE A

The Thunder Peewee A Team split a doubleheader at Manitowoc on Sunday. The Ice Breakers took game one 2-1 before the Thunder scored a 7-1 win in game two.

Owen Shafer had the lone Thunder goal in game one with an assist from Jesse McClarren while Jack Aftanas stopped 17 of the 19 shots he faced.

Game two featured a pair of goals each from McClarren and Simon King, while Samantha Ruiz, Parker Perket and Brayden Forgette found the net as well. Grace Loomis made 15 saves against 16 shots in the victory.

PEEWEE B

The Thunder Peewee B team dropped four games against two different Green Bay teams Saturday and Sunday.

The team got goals from Madisen Salewsky and Lucien Thayer. Sam McKinney racked up 51 saves on Saturday, while Carter Erdman added 41 saves in two games on Sunday.

SQUIRT A

The Thunder Squirt A team participated in the Badger State Games in Wausau this weekend.

The Thunder dropped games against Waunakee and Verona before defeating McFarland 12-3 in the seventh-place game.

SQUIRT B

The Thunder Squirt B team improved to 16-4 on the season with four wins against Mosinee and Sheboygan this weekend.

The team hosted Mosinee at the REC Center on Saturday and scored 5-3 and 7-0 victories.

Carter Campbell had hat trick in game one, while Liam Hofer and Ashton Behrens scored as well.

In game two, Campbell and Henry Schutt each had a pair of goals, while Finn Eastman, Ryan Haile and Hofer added to the total.

On Sunday, the team traveled to Sheboygan and won with scores of 5-2 and 5-3.

Campbell (3) and Schutt (2) handled the scoring in game one.

In game two, Campbell was a one-man wrecking crew, scoring all five Thunder goals.

Tag(s): 8U Cross Ice  10U Squirt A  10U Squirt B  12U PeeWee A  14U Bantam  18U High School  12U PeeWee B