Escanaba beats Alpena to match record for victories in a season
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By YVETTE LANIER
News Sports Writer
It's becoming a record-setting season for Escanaba's hockey team and the Alpena Wildcats bore witness to it.
In round two of the weekend series, the Wildcats skated right with Escanaba, but had a hard time outsmarting goalie Alex Wycokoff as he stopped all 25 shots he faced to help Escanaba earn its seventh shutout victory of the season with a 2-0 win at Northern Lights Arena on Saturday.
The Eskymos (15-3-1) tied an all-time school record for victories in a season.
"It's a big deal in respect to what the record was," said Escanaba head coach Charlie Elliott. "In moving this team forward we expect more than what has ever been done in the past.
"One of our goals is to win the state championship. We have our sights set pretty high. This is another great step in that direction. We can't get there without making these steps."
Escanaba's Dan Williams scored a goal in the second period, and Mark Gauthier iced the game at 15:37 in the third period, scoring an empty-net goal to hand the Wildcats their fourth straight loss.
Alpena's Tyler Schultz had another strong showing in the net finishing, the game with 18 saves on 20 shots.
Elliott said the Wildcats put up a good fight and his team was fortunate to come away with the win.
"Take nothing away from Alpena," he said. "They did a great job today. They were really able to control the flow of the game and we were just able to hang on."
Escanaba took the first game of series 3-0 on Friday.
Despite not coming out on top in Saturday's game, Alpena coach Chris Limback said his team gave a solid effort on the ice.
"We played great today. I thought we did everything that we could have asked for," said Limback. "We outplayed them today, and just unfortunately we couldn't get a goal past their goalie. We played a nice game."
It was a win the Wildcats didn't hand over easily.
The Wildcats created plenty of scoring opportunities but couldn't capitalize. Standing in their way was Wycokoff, who kept the their sticks quiet.
At 6:34 in the second period, Williams converted on a power play to put Escanaba on the board.
Good opportunities to score kept coming for the Wildcats. In the third period, Alpena's Greg Baranyai looked to get the Wildcats on board and tie the game when he fired off a shot that was stopped by Wycokoff.
The final goal of the night came when the Wildcats pulled their goalie and Gauthier scored the empty-netter, with assist going to Jared Dagenais.
The Wildcats struggled on the power play going 0-for-4, while Escanaba went 1-for-2.
The loss brings Alpena record to 4-15, and with four games remaining on the schedule before the regular season wraps up, Limback would like to see his team to continue play at the same level it did against Escanaba.
"Play just like we did today. I thought we did a great job. We played the body. We did good little things," said Limback. "I would like to see us get a little stronger on the puck and not one-handing it a lot. Again, I thought we played solid. We were making good decisions, just a fun game."
