The Muskegon Lumberjacks were desperately in need of a win, and they went out and got one on Friday with a 5-2 victory over the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders in Iowa.
The victory snapped a four-game losing streak for the Jacks and put them in position to gain a weekend sweep when the two teams meet again in Cedar Rapids on Saturday night.
The rematch will also present an opportunity for the Jacks to leapfrog the RoughRiders in the USHL Eastern Conference standings. Muskegon, now 16-17-2 on the season, is in seventh place with 34 points while Cedar Rapids is in sixth with 35.
The Lumberjacks got most of their firepower on Friday from some unlikely sources.
Leading scorer Jake Richard collected his 18th goal, which was no surprise, but he was joined on the scoring sheet by Niko Rexine (his seventh goal), Matvei Gridin (his fourth), Luke Buss (his fifth) and Justin Solovey (his fourth).
Sacha Boisvert had two assists for Muskegon while Rexine and Jacob Terpstra each added one.
Cedar Rapids’ Andy Moore scored the only goal of the first period at the 7:28 mark.
The Lumberjacks broke loose in the second period, collecting goals from Rexine (at the 5:11 mark), Richard (6:23) and Gridin (10:58) and led 3-2 heading into the third.
Zaccharya Wisdom scored Cedar Rapids’ only goal in the middle period.
Buss and Solovey nailed down the victory with goals at 8:03 and 17:28 of the third period, respectively.
Muskegon goalie Raythan Robbins stopped 31 of 33 shots to collect the win. Cedar Rapids had a 33-27 advantage in shots on goal.
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