Hockey picks up two big victories – La Crosse Tribune
The La Crescent High School hockey team’s offense is rolling. Most opponents, the Lancers have been able to simply outscore this season. But they’ve also had the luxury of a good defense and solid goaltending, and that combination led to a couple more blowout wins last week.
Lancers 8, Viroqua 0. The Lancers continued their dominance of Viroqua on Dec. 15 when the Blackhawks (1-5-1, 0-3 Coulee) visited La Crescent Community Arena. The second-straight blanking (it beat St. Paul Highland Park 7-0 three days earlier) ran La Crescent’s streak to seven consecutive shutout periods.
Considering its hot starts of late, it took the Lancers a little while to get going, but eventually, Carter Schmitz got them on the board with a goal at 9:58, assisted by Zack Hanno and Laudon Poellinger, to make it 1-0. Then just before the period ended, Mason Holzer extended the lead to two with a goal at 14:52. He was assisted by Sam Boma and Jakob Masterson.
The second period turned out to be La Crescent’s biggest, as Schmitz scored his second of the game at 1:48 on the power play to give it a 3-0 lead. Hanno assisted on the tally. Then just 1:03 later, Alex Boudreau pushed the lead to four with a Jory Danielson-assisted goal. Kyle Colsch made it 5-0 when he scored at 4:28, assisted by Schmitz and Hanno, then Danielson rounded out the offense in the second with a goal at 12:36. He was assisted by Gage Undahl and Josh Hackworth.
The Lancers added a couple more scores in the third period, beginning when Boudreau got his second of the game at 2:35, assisted by Poellinger and Undahl, to make it 7-0. Then at 11:25, Masterson finished off the offensive effort for the night with a Boma-assisted goal.
Josh DeBoer and Connor Ernst split time in goal for the Lancers, making 10 and two saves, respectively. The Lancers were 1-for-1 on the power play and killed five penalties. They also fired 46 shots on goal that night.
“We did what we needed to do to win the game. We jumped on them right way and set the tone and pace of the game,” head coach J.P. Piche said. “They battled hard, but we had too much fire power. It was a nice shutout win.”
Lancers 7, Tomah 1. On Dec. 17, the Lancers hosted the once-formidable Timberwolves. A team in its history that gave the Lancers fits, La Crescent in recent years has dominated the matchups between the two, and last week was no different.
La Crescent’s first period again proved to provide enough offense to secure the win. It began when Hanno scored a short-handed goal at 12:33, assisted by Schmitz, to break to 0-0 tie. Then just 1:01 later, Hackworth tallied another short-handed goal, assisted by Hanno, to give the Lancers a two-goal lead. Then with less than a minute left in the period, Hanno made it 3-0, with an assist to Poellinger.
The second period was quieter, though it started out quick when Schmitz scored an unassisted goal just 18 seconds after the puck dropped to push the lead to four. He then added a power-play goal at 3:16 of the third period to make it 5-0. Undahl and Poellinger assisted on the goal. But Tomah (2-6) ended La Crescent’s streak of nine shutout periods with a goal at 4:47, though Hanno responded at 12:02 to make it 6-1. Undahl finished off the scoring that night with a Boudreau-assisted goal at 15:56 to seal the win.
DeBoer had 24 saves in goal for the Lancers, who had 43 shots on goal themselves.
“Give Tomah credit, they played well and hard. They bottled us up and played a physical game,” Piche said. “They’re tough to play against, but we did what we needed to do. Josh had a good game in net and kept us in it.”
La Crescent has just one game next week, a New Year’s Eve rematch with Onalaska at the Omni Center. The puck drops at 4 p.m.
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