By Dave Hart
LocalSportsJournal.com
MUSKEGON – The Muskegon Lumberjacks took care of business in a big way on Sunday.
The Jacks were the only Eastern Conference contender in action and they came in looking to complete a weekend sweep and gain two more valuable points in the standings.
Muskegon had no problem doing that, cruising to a 6-1 win over the Green Bay Gamblers at Trinity Health Arena to complete the three-game weekend series sweep.
The Lumberjacks are 34-13-8 on the season, good for 76 points and a second-place tie in the USHL’s Eastern Conference with the Madison Capitols.
“Our goal was this past week to be greedy and get six points,” said Lumberjacks assistant coach CJ Kusch. “Credit the guys in the room for stepping up today. I thought they did a great job creating their own energy and momentum.”
Muskegon will host the Capitols next weekend in a huge three-game series, starting on Friday at 7:05 p.m. The Lumberjacks are just one point behind the first-place Dubuque Fighting Saints with two games at hand.
Sunday’s game featured a bunch of penalties and misconducts. Green Bay had 67 minutes of penalties while the Jacks had 58 for a total of 125.
Most of the penalties were handed out after the Jacks scored the last goal of the contest late in the second period.
“We are the youngest team and we want them to be both young and mature,” Kusch said. “We keep telling them we need to be discipline and act older than we are as a team.”
Offense was also a strong suit during the weekend as Muskegon scored six goals in all three games played for a total of 18 goals.
“We had six different goal scores both last night and today,” Kusch said. “Credit the guys in the room for doing their job and not going away from the message and the game plan.”
The Lumberjacks opened the scoring at the 3:59 mark of the first period. Vaclav Nestrasil scored his 17th of the season as he picked up a rebound from the right side of the goal and backhanded the puck into the net.
The Lumberjacks increased their lead to 2-0 as Chase Stefanek scored his 12th goal of the season on a wrist shot from the slot at 8:07.
The Gamblers responded with a goal from Will Zellers at 11:44.
Muskegon regained its two-goal lead with a 4-on-3 power-play goal at the 15:42 mark. Finn McLaughlin scored his first goal as a Lumberjack and his sixth of the season on a slap shot from the blue line.
The Lumberjacks maintained their 3-1 lead heading into the first intermission.
Muskegon doubled up its lead to 5-1 with a pair of goals near the midway point of the second period. Ivan Ryabkin scored his 15th goal of the season at the 10:22 mark, then Jack Galanek found the back of the net for his 21st of the year at 13:38.
The Gamblers tried to pull their goalie for an emergency goaltender that traveled with the team, but the referees called the substitution a non-emergency and returned the starter to the net.
Green Bay’s Roberto Henriquez played the entire weekend in net and allowed 16 total goals.
The Jacks continued to pour it on with a goal from Carter Sanderson, his fifth of the season, 15:43 into the second period to make it 6-1.
The Lumberjacks entered the third period with a 6-1 lead. The third period was scoreless.
Muskegon had a 26-24 advantage in shots on goal as goaltender Stephen Peck stopped 23-of-24 shots. It was Peck’s 18th victory of the season.
“He (Peck) seems like he has his confidence back,” Kusch said. “Both goalies create competition, which is good for each of them moving forward and that is important for us.”
Photos by Sondra Workman.
