Day: October 21, 2021

Team Wisconsin 18U gets back into win column

By Jim den Hollander 

Editor/Publisher 

Saukhockey.info 

After enjoying a rare weekend off, the Team Wisconsin 18U squad including Erik Peterson, a senior with the Sauk Prairie Eagles, returned to Upper Midwest High School Elite Hockey League play and snapped a seven-game winless streak. 

TW played four games on home ice at Chippewa Falls, beginning with a pair of wins against Minneapolis St. Paul Magazine (6-3, 7-4), the first on Friday (Oct. 15) night and the other early Saturday. Later Saturday, the team grabbed its third win of the weekend, taking the first of two against Twin Cities Orthopedics 2-1. TCO denied the Wisconsin squad a weekend sweep, taking the final game of the weekend 10-4. 

Team Wisconsin 6 Minneapolis St. Paul Magazine 3  

On Friday night, the visitors hit the scoreboard first but TW owned a 2-1 edge after a period and matched the same total in both the second and third.  

Josh Austin (Senior – St. Mary’s Springs Ledgers) paced the TW attack with three goals, Callan Buddinger (Notre Dame Academy Tritons) adding two and setting up another three and Ian Engel (Senior – Neenah/Hortonville/Menasha Rockets) scored the other. Peterson picked up a minor penalty in the contest. 

Brian Fixmer (Senior – Chippewa Falls Cardinals) turned in a stellar performance between the pipes, stopping 43 shots to lead the team to a win in a wild 88-shot contest 

Team Wisconsin 7 Minneapolis St. Paul Magazine 4  

After grabbing a 2-1 first period lead on Saturday morning, TW all but settled this one with a four-goal second period explosion and a 6-2 lead heading to the third. 

Jon Wiebusch (Senior – Edgewood Crusaders) fired two goals with other TW markers added by Parker Murn (Senior – Edgewood Crusaders); Hunter Bill (Junior – Notre Dame Academy Tritons); Colton Jamieson (Junior Cretin Durham Hall MN); Peyton Platter (Senior – Eau Claire Memorial Old Abes) and Aidan Lenz (Senior – Edgewood Crusaders). 

Adam Prokop turned in another awesome performance in goal for TW, stopping 53 shots helping TW pick up the win despite a lopsided 57-33 edge in shots for the opposition. 

Team Wisconsin 2 Twin Cities Orthopedics 1 

After 13 goals in the first two games, TW engaged in a defensive battle later Saturday. The Orthopedics scored their lone goal in the first period, Tyler Dale (Senior – Waukesha Wings) tying it with his second period tally and Kade Smigaj (Junior – Stevens Point Panthers) sinking the game winner in the opening minute of the third. 

Fixmer collected his second win of the weekend, beaten just once on 31 shots. 

Twin Cities Orthopedics 10 Team Wisconsin 4  

The final game of the weekend proved one too many for the Dairyland squad who fell behind 4-0 in the first period and trailed 6-0 before counting its first goal in the middle period.  

Austin, Smigaj, Wiebusch and Lenz counted the Team Wisconsin goals.  

With the weekend games, Team Wisconsin boosted its record in league play to 5-8-4 and its overall record to 9-9-4. 

The team will head to New Hope, MN for its final three regular season games Saturday and Sunday with League playoffs getting underway the following weekend. 

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Ducks prepare for busy stretch

By Jim den Hollander 

Editor/Publisher 

Saukhockey.info 

The Dells Ducks absorbed a couple more losses this past weekend, but the young building squad saw a small, but marked improvement from Saturday to Sunday and individually, a core group is quietly putting up some awesome offensive numbers.  

The task may not be getting tougher, but for sure more frequent as the team is now well into a long and busy stretch that will not relent until Thanksgiving.  

The next two weeks is the busiest of all with 10 games in just over two weeks beginning with a three-game road trip, starting in the Twin Cities, and wrapping up Sunday in Owatonna, MN. The first two games will be against the Minnesota Mullets, a team off to a similarly slow start to the season and equally as desperate to turn things around. On the other hand, the Steele County Blades who will entertain the Ducks on Sunday are off to an awesome 4-1-0-1 start and battling among the division leaders.  

Previously known as the Lakers (out of Edina and Maple Grove), since its transformation to the Mullets, the team coached by Chris Walby, a Sauk County area native has a record of 10-3 against the Ducks. Last season the two teams battled four times; all Mullets wins by a combined score of 32-5.  

This season the Mullets have faced a tough schedule out of the gate and sit at 2-4 and looking forward to a chance to even its record up. 

The Blades have won the past seven meetings against the Ducks including five from last season and as a result, they now have a 9-5 edge in meetings with the local team dating back to the 2018-19 regular season. 

While the Ducks have found it tough to find the win column again this season with just one ‘W’ in its first eight contests, there are some sparkling individual numbers. The team that put up just 65 goals in 43 contests a year ago has already scored 18 in eight games this season.  

Caden Glamkowski, a rookie forward from St. Charles, IL has played a big part, in on all but five of the team’s goals so far. He has six goals and 13 points and is one of a group of players on a pace for an offensive season.  

Bryce Jacobson has three goals and 11 points through the first eight games – two more points than he collected in a half season in 2020-21. Jacob Cartland, another rookie, from Mukwonago, WI, was one of the WIAA’s leading scorers with KMMO last season and has made a seamless transition to the junior level with six goals and nine points. Also, Jayden Tkaczuk, the team’s top scorer with 19 points a season ago has missed half of the eight with a suspension but still has a goal and seven points in the other four. 

The team’s youngest player, rookie defender Jack Kopfstein, an ‘05 from California has shown poise and maturity beyond his years despite playing as part of an understaffed and overworked defense corps. Goaltenders Anthony Falzone and Drew Moseley have handled the bulk of the workload and while facing as many shots in a period as most will in a game, they have remained confident and excited about their work between the pipes. The effort and intensity belie the stats they have been saddled with. 

After this weekend, the Ducks will return home for a few practices before attending its first of three Showcase events before Christmas. This one involves the eight Midwest-West Division teams and will be held at the Fogerty Ice Arena Oct. 22-25. Following that, the team will begin November with a three-game weekend in its final homestand of 2021.