Marinette Youth Hockey Association

The Thunder, who were seeded fourth in the tournament, took a 6-2 win over SHAW (Milwaukee) Friday night to advance to the semifinal round where they were defeated 10-2 by eventual champion Dodgeville.

In Sunday’s third-place contest, Hudson outlasted the Thunder 5-2.

Friday’s win did not start exactly as planned. The Thunder won the opening faceoff, but turned the puck over in the neutral zone and gave up a goal just 11 seconds into the game.

“They scored eleven seconds in, but after that we were in control for the entire game,” Thunder coach Fred Haley said. “We definitely got to them and got in their heads. They got frantic through the majority of the game, so that helped a lot. There were a lot of penalties, but we pulled through, played as a team, played hard, and came out with a win.”

Midway through the first period, high sticking and cross-checking penalties afforded the Thunder a five-on-three advantage, and Logan Sakovitz was able to tie the game with assists from Brayden Rounds and Blue Haley.

Early in the second period, Sakovitz struck again with an assist from Theron Thayer. Thirty seconds later, SHAW goalie Brady Clark was tagged with roughing and unsportsmanlike conduct penalties and was replaced in the net.

Damien Winterbottom took advantage of the cold keeper, scoring his first of three goals with assists from Chase Nerat and Rounds two minutes later.

Penalties began to plague the Timberwolves, and Winterbottom again scored on a power play, this time with an assist from Rounds, with six minutes to play in the second.

SHAW cut the margin to 4-2 early in the third, but Blue Haley got that goal back less than a minute later.

With just over a minute to play, Winterbottom completed his hattrick with a shorthanded strike.

The win vaulted the Thunder into the semifinals where they were pitted against top-seeded Dodgeville.

The Ice Wolves quickly dispatched any hope of an upset for the home team, scoring a pair of goals in the first 28 seconds of the game and opening a 4-0 lead in the first period.

The margin swelled to 5-0 before Haley got the Thunder on the board with an assist from Addison Lacy. Haley added a second goal in the third period, but the Ice Wolves loped to an easy 10-2 win.

“Dodgeville is a very good team,” Haley said. “There’s a reason they were the number one seed. I thought we played pretty well against them, but they just took it to us.”

Dodgeville went on to defeat Kenosha 4-3 in a dramatic double-overtime State Championship game on Sunday.

The Thunder met the Hudson Raiders Sunday afternoon in a battle for third place.

After a clean and scoreless first period, penalties began to pile up on the Thunder in the second.

“The first period was great,” Haley said. “I thought we outplayed them. Their goalie was really good. We got tons of shots and lots of quality chances, but we just couldn’t get it past him.”

Down 2-0, Rounds got the Thunder on the board with a powerplay goal five minutes into the period. However, the Thunder were whistled for a whopping ten penalties in the second period alone, and Hudson was able to open a 5-1 advantage.

Midway through the period, Rounds was tagged with a game misconduct checking from behind penalty. Later, Haley was inexplicably called for holding marking his third and final penalty after he was pulled down from behind and hit in the back of the head while he was down. The Thunder played the remainder of the game without their top two scorers.

Thayer, a senior playing in his final game, netted a third-period goal with an assist from Harper Burke, but it was not enough in a 5-2 loss.

Overall, Haley was pleased with his team’s performance.

“They never gave up,” he said. “They played hard the entire weekend. They gave us everything they could, so you’ve got to be happy about that.”

The Thunder, who battled injuries all season and rarely had the entire roster available, finished the season with an overall record of 13-22-2.