MUSKEGON – The Muskegon Lumberjacks do not stay down for long.
Throughout the young season, the Jacks have lost the first game of several two-game weekend series, only to bounce back the next night and gain revenge.
It happened during the first home weekend of the season against Team USA, in mid-October against the Youngstown Phantoms, and the following week on the road against the Lincoln Stars.
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Jacks captain Rudolfs Berzkalns (17). Photos/Sondra Workman
The Lumberjacks did it again on Saturday, avenging a tough 5-2 Friday night loss to the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders with an impressive 6-1 win over the same team at Muskegon’s Trinity Health Arena.
Muskegon is now 8-7-2 on the season, good for 18 points and third place in the USHL’s Eastern Conference. The Lumberjacks will return to the road to play the Des Moines Buccaneers for a two-game series, starting on Friday at 8:05 p.m. from Iowa.
“We took it personally, to be honest,” Lumberjacks coach Colten St. Clair said about Friday’s one-sided loss. “We sat back and figured out what we did wrong, and it came down to compete.
“On the positive side of it, bouncing back shows the character in the room. It shows they take it personally and do care about it. Now we just have to mature within and develop fully now.”
[2]Samuel Doyon-Cataquiz earned the win in net for the Lumberjacks, stopping 25 of 26 shots for his fifth victory of the season. Muskegon outshot the RoughRiders 28-26.
“There is a compete and readiness to him, and looking back I think he wanted it tonight,” St. Clair said about his goalie. “I knew I was going to get a hungry goaltender tonight, and that made the decision for me.”
Muskegon captain Rudolfs Berzkalns doubled his scoring production on the season with a pair of goals.
“You can tell he has been gripping the stick a little bit for point production,” St. Clair said. “At the end of the day it’s about winning battles and being a man out there. I can’t be more proud of him today for getting the team ready for today.”
[3]The Jacks took a 1-0 lead when Maxim Simko took a pass from Lars Hutson near the blue line, skated it to the right faceoff dot and wristed the shot home at the 1:25 mark of the first period.
The RoughRiders quickly responded 4:17 into the first period with a goal from Braiden Scuderi to tie the game.
Billy MacAusland gave the lead back to the Lumberjacks when he dug the puck from under the RoughRiders’ goalie and snapped it into the net at the 7:48 mark.
Muskegon extended the lead to 3-1 early in the second period with a power play goal at the 1:12 mark. Nicholas Kosiba found the puck lying right on the goal line after a shot from the left face off circle and tapped it in for his fifth goal of the season.
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Photo/Sondra Workman
The Lumberjacks continued adding on to their lead when Alex Smyth scored his first goal of the season, taking a pass from Drew Fox right in front of the net and burying it home 6:31 into the second period.
Berzkalns charged the net at the 10:04 mark of the second period, was denied by the Cedar Rapids goalie, then popped his own rebound in to increase the Lumberjacks’ advantage to 5-1.
Berzkalns added his second goal at the 12:21 mark of the third period to give the Jacks a 6-1 lead. He scored in front of the net, scooping up a rebound from a shot by Zaac Charbonneau.
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