Wilderness win in Dramatic Shootout

Photos by: Heidi Willeck

Dwight Cadwell-NSO

The Minnesota Wilderness went ten players deep into a shootout and finally it was Jack Forbort who beat Aberdeen goalie Chad Catt as the Wilderness picked up their fifth straight win Friday night.

The Wilderness jumped out to a 2-0 lead Friday as Darian Romanko scored first to put the Wilderness in front 1-0 at 6:33 of the second period. Jaycob McCombs scored four minutes later to make it 2-0 in favor of Minnesota.

TJ Roo scored for the Wings at 14:04 on the power play to cut the margin to 2-1 and it remained that way until Jordan Heller scored with three minutes remaining in the third period as the Wings and the Wilderness were heading to overtime.

The overtime stanza was scoreless and it was the Wilderness who put five shots on net but was unable to beat net minder Catt. With the game ties after overtime it was a shootout in which the Wilderness would prevail.

The Wings scored on their first shootout attempt to take a 1-0 lead until Jakob Romo tied the shootout at 1-1. Romo was the Wilderness’ third shooter. It took seven more shoot out attempts before Forbort’s goal and the Wilderness victory.

Wilderness goalie Frank Oplinger made several outstanding saves in the shootout and was the winning goalie as he stopped 22 saves on the night. The Wilderness will try to make it six consecutive wins Saturday night at home against the same Aberdeen Wings team.

Dwight Cadwell can be reached at Dwight@northlandsportsonline.com