By Dave Hart
LocalSportsJournal.com
MUSKEGON – After a disappointing performance Thursday night, the Muskegon Lumberjacks were glad to play at the Trinity Health Arena.
The Lumberjacks have played their best hockey at home of late, winning their last five games there entering Friday night’s matchup with Youngstown.
Muskegon started off hot for the second straight home game with another early three-goal barrage, but the squad managed to eventually give up its lead midway through the third period.
The Lumberjacks still managed to earn the victory despite giving up their advantage as they defeated the feisty Phantoms squad 8-5 to erase the bad taste they had after allowing nine goals the previous contest in Plymouth.
Muskegon is now 16-10-2 on the season, good for 34 points and a fourth-place tie with Madison in the USHL’s Eastern Conference.
The Jacks will look to keep their home success alive Saturday night when they host the Phantoms in the final contest of 2023 calendar year. Faceoff is slated for 7 p.m.
“Every team we play in this league is going to be good,” said Lumberjacks assistant coach CJ Kusch. “The Phantoms have a lot of guys back from last year’s team and so they know how to play a championship style game. It was good for our guys to go through a little adversity within the game and it was a good thing that we clawed back.”
The Lumberjacks jumped out to a commanding 3-0 lead just past the midway point of the opening period. Joe Connor opened the scoring 47 seconds in to give Muskegon a 1-0 lead, then Jack Galanek added a tally at the 8:44 mark.
The Lumberjacks were given a great opportunity to add to their two-goal lead with a two-man advantage for more than 1 minute.
Muskegon connected when the Phantoms were two men down, scoring a goal 12:27 into the opening period from Matvei Gridin to give the Lumberjacks their 3-0 lead.
Youngstown got on the board just before the intermission as Sam Ranallo scored a goal 18:59 to cut the Phantom deficit to 3-1.
Both teams traded goals early in the middle period.
Youngstown cut its deficit to 3-2 with a goal from Brandon Svoboda 2:39 into the second period.
The Lumberjacks quickly responded at the 3:28 mark as Bauer Berry notched his first goal of the season to give Muskegon a 4-2 lead.
Muskegon added to its lead as Ty Henricks took a beautiful pass in front of the net at 8:07 and buried it to restore the Jacks’ three-goal lead.
Youngstown pulled its starting goalie Colin Winn after Muskegon’s fifth goal of the contest.
The Phantoms scored another late period goal with 44 seconds remaining in the middle period with a goal from Tomas Machu that made it 5-3.
The goal went to review for a high stick and was eventually called a legal goal.
Muskegon had another two-goal lead going into the final period despite being outshot by the Phantoms 26-16.
The Phantoms received a continuous five-minute power play at the start of the third period and connected with a goal 2:52 with a goal from Jack Willson that made it 5-4.
“It’s tough to go on a five-minute kill at the start of a period,” said Kusch. “We gave up one, but it was an incredible job by our killers blocking shots and getting pucks out.”
Muskegon continued to struggle to stay out of the penalty box as the squad was down two men for more than a minute shortly after giving up its fourth goal of the game.
The Lumberjacks killed off both penalties.
Muskegon, however, committed another penalty at the 9:30 mark and the Phantoms delivered the game-tying goal just 3 seconds later from Daniel Jencko to tie up the contest at 5-all.
The Lumberjacks kept their head up and took back their lead at the 12:48 mark of the third period with a power-play goal from Sacha Boisvert.
Muskegon increased its lead to 7-5 at 15:35 on a goal from Cooper Pierson.
The Lumberjacks put the game on ice with an empty-net goal from Cody Croal with 1:23 remaining.
Croal, Ryan Koering and Gridin each paced the Jacks with two assists.
Youngstown outshot the Lumberjacks 34-27 and goalkeeper Miles Roberts stopped 29-of-34 shots in his Muskegon debut.
The Goalie picture in the article is of Miles Roberts.