After a thrilling night at the Superior Ice Showdown at GFL Memorial Gardens, Lake Superior State returned to Taffy Abel Arena in Sault Ste. Marie, MI to wrap its CCHA series with St. Thomas.
The Tommies (16-7-3, 13-3-2) beat the Lakers (9-16-1, 6-12-0) in the series finale 5-0 Saturday night.
The Tommies scored four goals in the first period. Lucas Wahlin struck at 5:28 from Ryan O'Neill and Alex Gaffney. Quinton Pepper added another goal 91 seconds later. By the end of the period, Nathan Pilling had added two more scores to push the score to 4-0. Wahlin added another in the third period to round out the scoring.
Rorke Applebee came on in relief of
Andrew Oke and made 20 saves for the Lakers on 21 shots. While the Tommies had six powerplay chances, the Lakers kept the visitors quiet on the man advantage with just nine total shots on goal. Three of those came on the powerplay in the game's final moments.
The Lakers won 35 of 63 faceoffs in the game.
Connor Milburn won nine of his 13 draws,
William Ahlrik won 11 of 17 faceoffs,
John Herrington took six of his nine chances and
Wilson Dahlheimer won five of seven chances.
The Lakers hit the road for two games at Augustana next weekend in Sioux Falls, SD. Then, after a week off, LSSU returns to Abel Arena for a Yooper showdown with Michigan Tech on February 13th and 14th. Buy your tickets online or at the Norris Center box office.
