Two out of three. Not a bad way to start the year.
 
Lake Superior State's ACHA Division II Men's Hockey team traveled to the Trine Showcase this weekend and beat Trine 3-2, hammered Wittenburg 9-1 and lost 4-2 to Indiana.
 
"I feel really good," said Laker Head Coach Steve Kaunisto after the Indiana game on Sunday. "Obviously, as a coach, going 3-0 would be the best thing for our program, but our final game was against Indiana, who's usually top five to ten in our region. It was quite the game. They went up on his 2-0. We came back to tie it 2-2 in the second. They got a couple of goals on some bouncing pucks in front of our goalie. There's a lot of things I got to see. We're going to have a really good program this year."
 
In the opener against Trine on Friday night, the Lakers (2-1) scored twice in the second period to beat the hosts. Tied 1-1 after the first, Derrick Brown scored for Lake State. But the Thunder countered with a goal to knot the score up at 2-2 with just over five minutes remaining in the frame. Less than a minute after that, Blaine Dorion restored the Laker advantage, putting LSSU up 3-2 and ahead for good. Adam Trzcinski scored the opener for LSSU in the first. Garrett Ambrose got the start in goal and made 30 saves in his Laker debut.
 
The Lakers crushed Wittenburg on Saturday. Nate Korowin, Caleb Curto and Luke Vega scored first period goals, and Chris Kavanaugh scored two more in the second. Vega, Brown, Nick Wood, and Trzcinski added goals in the third. Luke Anderson made 13 saves in the win.
 
On Sunday against Indiana, the Lakers rallied from a two-goal deficit to tie the game in the second period. Mario Savino and Colin Lefebvre notched their first goals of the season to tie the game at 2-2. But the Hoosiers answered in the third, banging in a pair of loose pucks near the Laker net to take a 4-2 result. Ethan Fitzgerald made 47 saves in his Laker debut.
 
On the balance, Kaunisto said he was happy with his team's work on opening weekend and how it sets the group up for success this campaign.
 
"I told the team our goal is regionals. The top 16 teams in our region go. You have to win three games to go to Nationals. This showcase was a good barometer for that. Seeing if we can play three games in three days and compete on that final day."
 
Next week, the Lakers travel to Wittenburg, which is in its first year of competition. The Tigers dressed 11 for their game against LSSU on Saturday, featuring a small roster in their inaugural season.
 
Kaunisto said, "It allows us to really learn our systems, hone in our systems and see where our maturity is at. I think there's times that one person might be able to do it all, but we can't have that within our team and our system. We need to work together, play within our system and grow from that next weekend."
 
Follow the team all season long on the new Lake Superior State Lakers app, now available on the App Store and Google Play.