LocalSportsJournal.com
WATERLOO – A five-goal second period doomed the Muskegon Lumberjacks on Saturday night in Iowa.
The Waterloo Blackhawks scored five unanswered second period goals and cruised to an 8-2 win over the Lumberjacks at Young Arena. The Lumberjacks ended up with a split in their weekend road trip after winning in overtime on Friday night against the Des Moines Buccaneers.
Muskegon is now 8-4-2 on the season, good for 18 points and fourth-place tie in the USHL’s Eastern Conference.
The Lumberjacks return home next weekend for a pair of games against the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders starting on Friday at the Trinity Health Arena. Faceoff is 7 p.m.
The Black Hawks opened the scoring with a pair of goals to take a 2-0 lead. John Mustard connected with a power-play goal at the 11:52 mark of the opening period, then Eero Butella scored 14:11 into the first.
The Lumberjacks responded with a Hunter Anderson power-play goal 16:11 into the first period to cut Muskegon’s deficit to 2-1.
Waterloo exploded during the middle stanza, scoring five unanswered goals in the period.
Teddy Townsend (1:03), Carson Reed (3:02), Jake Delaney (10:25), Jaedon Kerr (14:11) and Tommy Cronin (16:26) each found the back of the net for the Black Hawks. Waterloo led 7-1 through two periods of play.
The Jacks stopped the bleeding with a third-period power play goal from Justin Solovey at the 7:40 mark.
The Black Hawks closed out the scoring with a power-play goal from Gavin Lindberg at the 10:39 mark.
Waterloo outshot the Lumberjacks, 31-21.
The Lumberjacks went 2-for-4 on the power play while Waterloo was 3-for-4.
Paxton Geisel suffered the loss in net, stopping 12-of-17 shots in just over 30 minutes of play. Lukas Swedin stopped 11-for-14 shots in relief for Muskegon.
