Wilderness Sweep Minot

Dwight Cadwell – NSO

The Minnesota Wilderness swept this weekends series with the Minot Minotauros in Minot North Dakota. The Wilderness won a tight defensive battle on Friday night coming away with a 1-0 victory while playing shorthanded, and Saturday night the Wilderness came from two goals down to beat Minot by a score of 3-2.

Friday it was Daniel Litchke scoring an unassisted goal late in the first period which proved to be the game winner Friday night. The Wilderness who played with only 4 defensemen Friday withstood a third period flurry for the win. Brock Kautz was the winning goaltender stopping all 26 shots he faced.

Saturday saw Minot jump out to an early 2-0 first period lead but the Wilderness  responded right back as with Minot leading 2-0 in the first period Robb Stautz scored his 4th goal of the season  on assists from Nicholas Lehtimaki and Michael Covach.

The Wilderness tied the contest in the second period  when Darian Romanko scored at 16:14 of the second to make it a 2-2 tie game heading into the third period.

The Wilderness took the lead for good in the third period when Aaron Miller scored at the 13:46 mark with assists to Billy Exell and Brett Heikkila as the Wilderness improved to 11-7 on the season, and are in second place of the Midwest Division with 23 points. Brock Kautz picked up his second consecutive win Saturday night as his goals against average dropped to 2.02.

The Wilderness will be home next Friday and Saturday night when they will face the Austin Bruins who are 10-4-7 overall and are atop the Central Division standings.