The Mustangs snuck by the Burke High Bulldogs at Tranquility IcePlex Wednesday night 3-2. After the game both coaches commented on how evenly the game was played and just how much fun the game was. Alex Forehead was assessed a checking from behind penalty and sat out 12 minutes of the game but came back with a vengence and made up for it as he scored all 3 goals unanswered for the Mustangs. Burke jumped out to an early 1-0 lead as they took advantage of an early mistake by the Mustang defense. Christian Peterson swung wide and found himself in the clear as one of the Mustang defense tripped over the blue line backing into his zone and he beat Orehek with a nice move to his backhand. 3 minutes into the start of the 2nd period the Bulldogs found the back of the net again as Austin Spellman scored with assists to Tyler Huhmann and Josh Wolf. But that would be the last goal for them as the Mustangs shut them down for the remainder of the game.
Alex and the rest of his line caught fire and began to pepper the Bulldog goal, but Ryan Stednitz was equal to the task. They finally broke thru and Alex scored the first of his hat trick with 3:26 left in the 2nd period to make it a 2-1 game. With 8:48 left in the 3rd period Cory Neumann of BHS was given a roughing penalty. Although, the Mustangs didn’t score on the Power Play, you could feel the momentum change. Then with 2:32 left in the 3rd period, Forehead again found the back of the net with an assist to Mike Dotsen. On their very next shift 45 seconds later, Alex scored the game winning goal as the Mustangs were buzzing the net. Scott Sheldon made a real nice pass to Forehead in front of the net and he banged it in for the lead which had everyone on the bench saying, “WOW!”
The last 1:45 was crazy as the Mustangs tried to keep the puck in the Bulldog zone so that they couldn’t pull their goalie. But as an errant rinkwide pass missed its mark and ended up an icing, Burke was able to get the extra attacker. On the ensuing faceoff, Sean Norton squared off with Sheldon (who hasn’t lost many faceoffs this year!) and the Bulldogs had a real nice scoring opportunity only to have Chris Orehek kick out the shot with a HUGE pad save to ice the win. The Mustangs outshot the Bulldogs 21-18.
