Bluebirds' winning streak ends
JANESVILLE — A six-game winning streak came crashing down for the Janesville Bluebirds on Saturday night.
Colin Fritz had a goal and three assists to lead Milwaukee University School to a 5-3 nonconference win over Janesville’s high school co-op hockey team at the Janesville Ice Skating Center.
The ninth-ranked Bluebirds (7-2) got on the board 14 seconds into the game on Logan Lemirande’s goal, but the Wildcats (8-4) took command with the next five goals.
“We came out with great effort the first five minutes of the game, and probably should’ve had one or two more goals besides the one we got,” Janesville coach John Mauermann said. “After that, we took a lot of silly penalties once again, and seemed to follow one penalty by taking another one.
“I thought we really controlled play the third period, but you can’t dig yourself a hole like we did. We didn’t play well at all in the second period.”
Trailing 5-1, Janesville tried to rally in the third. Derek Mussey cut the lead to three with a power play goal 50 seconds into the period. Zach Bayeuther and Michael Valentine picked up assists on the goal.
Valentine made it 5-3 when he redirected Ross Mauermann’s blast from the left circle at 3:24 of the third. Lemirande also picked up an assist on Janesville’s second straight power play goal.
With less than two minutes remaining, Mauermann appeared to get tripped on a breakaway and was not able to get a shot off—which should’ve resulted in a penalty shot. The officiating crew talked over the play before deciding that Michael Crimmins would only be given a two-minute minor for hooking. The Bluebirds, despite on the 5-on-4 advantage, could not capitalize.
“I’m not making any excuses,” coach Mauermann said about the no-call on the penalty shot or not being able to practice, or anything else. “We just have to stay out of the penalty box.
“You have to skate hard for three periods, and we didn’t do that tonight. And there’s no excuse for that.”
David Jacobson made 16 saves in suffering the loss.
UNIVERSITY SCHOOL 5, JANESVILLE 3
University School 2 3 0—5
Janesville 1 0 2—3
First period
J—Logan Lemirande (Zach Bayreuther, Derek Mussey), :14. US—Dane Maher (Colin Fritz, Beau Palin), 6:53. US—Alex Tesensky (Fritz, Maher), 14:19.
Second period
US—Zach Hafeman (Corey Roadhouse, Kemp Collings), 2:23. US—Maher (Palin, Fritz), pp, 6:23. US—Fritz (Charlie James, Alex Tesensky), pp, 9:38.
Third period
J—Derek Mussey (Bayreuther, Michael Valentine), pp, :50. J—Valentine (Lemirande, Ross Mauermann), pp, 3:24.
Saves—Dan Smyzcek (University School) 17, David Jacobson (Janesville) 16.
Jan 18, 2009 at 6 p.m.
Suggest removal
The said ref who "sucked" has a history imho of not letting the players play, and let THEM determine it. The linesman who did the game, the one without the orange stripe on his arm-for the novices to hockey- blew another icing on the power play when he called icing on the penalty kill. He did it Tuesday night against Middleton. Either he is not up on the rules-which I doubt, or just not having his head in the game. Either way this group did not work well together. Nonetheless, give USM credit. They came in and got a big win. The 'birds will bounce back no doubt. Give them credit for not laying down after a 4 goal defecit. They got after them, just dug themselves too big a hole to get out of.
Jan 18, 2009 at 9:13 a.m.
Suggest removal
Just a minor grounding of the birds. They will come back strong.
Jan 18, 2009 at 8:26 a.m.
Suggest removal
Refs vary in ability just like players on teams do. This group has third line ability at best, especially the head ref, he's definitely a bench warmer. On this night their performance was as poor as the Bluebirds, so given where their ability level started, the results awful.
Jan 18, 2009 at 2:16 a.m.
Suggest removal
I thought the referees really sucked. That one ref always does a bad job and I usually don't say that. I think the coach is very diplomatic.
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