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Tigers Pounce on Mustangs to Advance to Championship

By WiPH Staff, 03/02/23, 12:30PM CST

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As Big Rivers Conference foes, the #4 Menomonie Mustangs and #1 New Richmond Tigers have already met twice this season, but neither of those games was the WIAA Boys Hockey State Tournament at Bob Suter's Capitol Ice Arena in Madison.

In their two previous meetings, the the Tigers won 6-0 and 5-2. After the first period today, it looked like the Mustangs were on track to significantly narrow that gap, but four goals in the span of two minutes and forty seconds in the second period built too big a lead for the Tigers for the Mustangs to recover from and New Richmond will advance to the Division 2 championship game after winning 10-0.

Right at the end of a very clean first period the Tigers of New Richmond managed to get on the board. Catcher Langeness and Bjorn Bahneman traded the puck in front of the Mustangs net and Bahneman slid the puck to Steven Chapman on the back door for an easy tap-in with just 10 seconds left in the frame and the late lead at the end of the first period.

They would pick up their second goal at the 3:41 mark of the second period when Langeness and Bahneman got behind the defense and connected on a 2-on-0 to with Bahneman scoring to make it 2-0.

They would extend the lead from 2-0 to 5-0 in rapid succession. At 4:43 Zaylin Sweet connected with Malaki Pethes on another odd-an rush to make it 3-0. At 7:14 Sweet scored on a wrap around on a New Richmond power play, and then just nine seconds later Gage Fox scored on a wrister from the slot after a Menomonie turn over and made it 5-0. 

After the onslaught of goals, Menomonie called their timeout to reset and finished out the period with the same 5 goal disadvantage. 

The Tigers got back to their scoring ways in the third period however, netting another five goals, from Sweet, Jameson Unger, Matthew Unger, Reece Humber, and Max Kretovics.

In the end the Mustangs didn't have an answer for the top ranked Tigers who took the 10-0 win.

Jack Drout stopped 21 shots for the Mustang as New Richmond continually got shots from the slot and in close. Carl Rabeneck played the final five minutes for Menomonie, but didn't face a shot on goal. Blake Milton had 19 saves for New Richmond, and Ryan McGillis had one. 

The Tigers will move on to play the winner of Oregon and Mosinee on Saturday.

WiPH Game Summaries