SPASH Skates to Merrill Victory
By Ken McKenzie
The SPASH boys hockey team renewed their live game action after a long holiday reprieve in hosting Merrill at K.B. Willett Arena Thursday with some early sluggishness, allowing their visitors an early goal before kick-starting their offense to an impressive 15-1 win.
The Panthers scored six, five and four goals respectively to fuel the three period blowout. The Merrill goalie might be seeing Panther offensive surges in his sleep as the host squad used great team play to earn the victory, a warm-up for the two-night hosting of the Sentry Classic tourney.
SPASH hosts the state’s top ranked squad, Appleton United, at 7:15 Friday, a match that follows the Mosinee-Waupaca kickoff game of the four-game set at the K.B. Willett Arena to benefit community parks. Losers play at 5 p.m. Saturday and winners face-off in the late game that will follow.
“Appleton has some high end players and a solid goalie,” said Coach Dan Francis of the Appleton squad. “We’ll need to limit our mistakes and be on our best game and cover for each other against a high power squad like United.”
Francis said purposely moved some squad members around for the Merrill game to divide the ice time over the three-consecutive nights and help on any fatigue factor that might come into play, but also to give some JV squad players a chance to see varsity action.
“We pulled up some JV players to give them some live game situation action,” Francis said. “Games have more speed than you can simulate in practices and the faster pace will help them improve and compete for varsity slots on next year’s team. They’ve (JV’s) outscored their opponents 48-1 in game action after eight games, so they need to see some varsity action.”
Senior forward and team goal-leader Kobe Keller led the Panther onslaught as he scored the hat-trick and was joined in the triple score experience by junior forward Grant Czaikowski while sophomore Brock Caufield scored twice. Treyton Zinda, Austin Haas, Jacob Dufresne, Jacob Beilke, Zane Fisher, Sam Medo and Devon Blaes all joined in peppering the Merrill net and amassing the 15 goals.
After the early one on one Merrill goal scoring play, junior goaltender Colin Schuh was solid guarding the Panther, earning 14 saves on the night. The Merrill goalie was credited with 40 saves on the night, an example of how busy the action was at his end of the ice.
SPASH also got some help Thursday in WVC action as Wisconsin Rapids Lincoln held Wausau West to a single first period goal while scoring six times themselves, including two of five power plays. That win, coupled with the Panthers own victory, forces a three-way tie atop the WVC with SPASH, Wausau West and WR Lincoln all at 4-1 conference records and bringing special significance to the January 22 Wausau West – SPASH tilt at the Willett.