Granite City Lumberjacks 8 - Twin Cities Northern Lights 1
If the Lumberjacks New Year’s resolution was to score more, than they surely have stuck to this by whipping up on the Northern Lights 8-1. Since the beginning of the New Year, the Lumberjacks have posted a 3-1 record and have scored a total of 26 goals. Moreover, ten different players have accounted for the aforementioned goals. The team has begun to play team oriented hockey and fans have been entertained by the new look ‘Jacks.
Tuesday’s postponed make-up game versus the Twin Cities Northern Lights came at odd start time due to ice scheduling constraints; however, this did not stop the Lumberjacks from once again pouncing on the opportunity to create a lop-sided home victory. #14 Kent Kirby would begin the scoring brigade for the Lumberjacks just 49 seconds into the MJHL matinee match-up. #18 Tyler Wahl would pick up the lone assist on the goal. New Prague native, #26 Kyle Kalina, would pick up his second goal of the season with a hard wrist shot from the left face-off circle. This blistering shot was set up by #19 Alex Naujokas. Ten minutes later, #03 Brad Phenow, would pick up his first point of the game on a short-handed goal to make the score 3-0 Lumberjacks heading into intermission.
Even though both teams would combine to fire a total of 26 shots on the net in the second period, the scoring column for either team would remain unchanged until the final two minutes. #19 Naujokas would change the non-scoring second period theme by scoring the only goal at the 18:53 mark. The goal would be marked as a power play goal with assists being credited to #03 Phenow and #09 Sean Kenny.
Much like the previous game versus the Northern Lights, the Lumberjacks did not let up on their destruction of their opponents zone. #07 Tyler Sura, #14 Kirby, and #09 Sean Kenny would score in a 3 minute and 20 second span to make the score 7-0 good guys. #07 Sura’s goal would come on the power play with an assist going to #09 Kenny and #19 Naujokas. #18 Wahl would continue to post to his season stats with his assist on #14 Kirby’s goal: #07 Sura and #08 Matt Krueger would pick up helpers on #9 Kenny’s goal. With a little over two minutes to play, #12 Josh Mandich would score for the Northern Lights to break up the shutout bid made by ‘Jacks goalie, #30 Justin Lochner. #18 Wahl would answer Mandich’s goal just 19 seconds later to complete the scoring for both teams. #14 Kirby and #22 Brady Borer would pick up the final points of the night after their collaboration upon Wahl’s goal.