Jake Richard’s three-goal hat trick, along with a four-goal third period, propelled the Muskegon Lumberjacks to an 8-5 road win over the Chicago Steel on Saturday.

The victory was the Lumberjacks’ first over the first-place Steel in six tries this season.

The Lumberjacks salvaged a weekend split with Chicago and improved to 14-13-2 on the season. The Jacks now have 30 points in the USHL’s Eastern Conference standings and are in sixth place, but only four points out of second place.

The Lumberjacks will return home next Friday and Saturday night for games against the Youngstown Phantoms.

Muskegon jumped out to a 2-0 lead after the one period with goals from David Hymovitch and Richard at the 3:25 and 5:31 marks, respectively.

The Steel tied the game 2-2 early in the second period with goals from Jack Harvey at 1:10 and Mack Celebrini at the 4:49 mark.

The Lumberjacks regained their advantage at 7:03 of the second period with a goal from Nathan McBrayer.

The Steel responded with goals from Jayden Perron (8:30) and Harvey (10:35) to take a 4-3 lead.

Owen Mehlehbacher tied the game for Muskegon at the 12:08 mark of the second period, and the score was 4-4 headed into the third.
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The Jacks scored the first two goals of the third period, with Richard finding the net at the 2:23 mark and Sacha Boisvert scoring at 10:02.

Chicago cut its deficit to 6-5 on a goal by Perron 14:43 into the third period.

Richard completed his hat trick at the 16:30 mark of the third period to give the Jacks a 7-5 lead. Hymovitch closed out the scoring with his second goal of the contest 16:51 into the third.

The Lumberjacks outshot Chicago by a 50-36 margin and were 2-for-3 on the power play while only allowing one goal on Chicago power plays.

 Conor Callaghan stopped 31 of 36 shots on net for Muskegon to earn the victory.