CEC Loses 9-5 Shootout With Marshall

Jan 26

Kerry Rodd-NSO

Scoring wasn’t the issue for the Cloquet-Esko-Carlton boys hockey team on Tuesday night, but stopping the scoring was. The Lumberjacks fell 9-5 to the Duluth Marshall Hilltoppers in a game that saw Marshall score three goals in each period.

The Lumberjacks got off to a fast start in the first period when Paul Ryan pumped in a goal at 2:35 with Tyler Tollerud and Jack McFarlane assisting, but that would be the only time the Jacks would have the lead. Marshall answered with three straight goals in the period from Judd Peterson at 12:24 and 14:36 and Dan Letourneau at 15:10 as the Hilltoppers took a 3-1 lead after the first period.

Dane Morin scored on a power play at 7:07 of the second period, followed by a Matt Morsette goal for Marshall at 8:43 and the lead was 5-1. Ben Michaud responded for the Jacks with a goal at 9:33 that was assisted by Conner Tollerud and Adam Hanson. However, Josh Wentz scored for DM just 27 seconds later, building the lead back to 6-2. Before the second period ended, the Jacks picked up a pair of goals by Max Reinertson and another goal by Michaud and they had pulled to within 6-4. However, the inability to keep the puck out of the net came back to haunt CEC again in the final period.

Judd Peterson scored a power play goal at 3:36 of the final period and that was followed by a Wentz score at 6:59 and another goal by Morsette at 12:14 as the Hilltoppers lead grew to 9-4. CEC finally added another power play goal at 15:30 by Jack McFarlane with Mark Savage and Ben Michaud adding the assists, but the goal was just too little and too late for the Jacks.

CEC finished with a total of 36 shots on Marshall goalie Max Elstad, who finished with 31 saves. C-E-C’s John Scheuer and Boyd Smith made a combined 24 saves for the Lumberjacks.

Kerry Rodd can be reached at Kerry@northlandsportsonline.com