Click the thumbnails to see photos and videos taken by Lizzie Taylor and Dallin Fisher. Also click the AUDIO buttons to hear post-game comments from Chase Korpi, Brody Levesque, Cully Hayes, and Coach Andy Johnson. Also click to hear player spotlight interviews with Parker Menard and Morgun Lynch.
WELLS---The Escanaba High School hockey team scored three goals in less than two minutes to start the third period Thursday night, and beat the Grandville Bulldogs, 5-1, at the Wells Sports Complex. It was a battle of two state-ranked teams, with Grandville ranked No. 2 in Division Two (and eighth in the Super Ten of all classes) and the Eskymos coming in ranked eighth in Division Three.
Grandville dominated Escanaba in the first five minutes of the game, outshooting the Eskymos. 6-0. But senior goaltender Cully Hayes turned aside all six of those shots to keep it scoreless. Then, late in the first period, senior captain Graham Johnson made a pinpoint pass to fellow captain Nolan Bink, and Bink buried it into the open net.
Hayes kept it 1-0 by making a huge save in the final second of the first period, and that 1-0 lead stood up despite the Bulldogs peppering Hayes with four shots on a second period power play. Finally, late in the period, Grandville's Landon Smith made a nice play, got Hayes moving in net, and tucked it home to tie the game at 1-1.
But the game turned quickly early in the second period when the Eskymos regained the lead thanks to the work of their third line. Gunnar LaMarche made a nice pass from the wall to Brody Levesque at the faceoff dot. Levesque rifled a shot off the crossbar and into the net, giving Esca,naba a 2-1 lead.
Moments later, the Bulldogs scored on themselves, with a pass going off the skate of goaltender Ayden Karas, making it 3-1. Bink was credited with the goal.
And 50 seconds after that goal, Owen LaBonte passed on a 2-on-1 rush to Chase Korpi, and the freshman made no mistake as he fired a shot past Karas, making it 4-1.
Escanaba closed the scoring late in the period when Ben Sands got another good pass from Johnson and buried it, making it a 5-1 game. That goal came moments after LaBonte stopped a breakaway rush with a clean steal of the puck from Smith, and after Hayes made three more big saves off a Grandville power play.
Hayes ended up with 28 saves and earned the game's first star. Levesque, with the big go-ahead goal and solid all-around play, earned the game's second star. And Korpi and Grandville's Smith shared the game's third star.
Karas made 22 saves for the Bulldogs, who fell to 13-5-1 on the season. Grandville, from the Grand Rapids area, continued a three-game Upper Peninsula trip with games Friday and Saturday against Painesdale-Jeffers and Houghton.
Escanaba, meanwhile, improved to 14-6-0 on the season, and has now played 13 games against state-ranked teams. The Eskymos will have another one on Saturday, when they travel to Marquette for a big conference game against the seventh-ranked Sentinels.
