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Calumet speed keeps Marquette Redmen hockey players on their heels

Marquette’s Thomas Dunleavy controls the puck in his own end during the first period Thursday against the Copper Kings at the Calumet Colosseum. (Houghton Daily Mining Gazette photo by Daver Karnosky)

CALUMET — There was one simple difference Thursday night between Calumet Copper Kings and the Marquette Redmen that anyone in the Calumet Colosseum could see — the Copper Kings used their speed to take advantage of the Redmen en route to a 3-0 victory to close out the regular season.

With the win, the Copper Kings improved to 11-1 in the Great Lakes Hockey Conference to split the league title with Hancock.

While earning the tie for the conference was nice, Calumet coach Dan Giachino and his players were more focused on finishing strongly while they prepare for Monday’s matchup with Hancock in the opener of the MHSAA Division 3 regional tournament at Michigan Tech.

“Hopefully as we progress here into Monday, that confidence level stays up and we get the full effort that we have been getting all year,” Giachino said.

It took the Copper Kings just 1:37 to put the Redmen back on their heels when senior Trevor Salata blasted a shot from the blue line past Redmen goaltender Tyler Bergwall that he never saw. For Salata, it was his second straight game-winning goal.

After Calumet sophomore Brent Loukus won the draw that set up Salata’s tally, it was clear to MSHS coach Doug Garrow that his squad was not ready to handle the Copper Kings’ speed.

“They came at us hard in the first period,” Garrow said. “I didn’t think we were ready for the speed. As the game went on, I thought we played a little better tempo-wise.”

Last week, Garrow’s team lost to Hancock 2-1 and defeated Houghton by that same score. But Thursday night, the Redmen struggled to match everything that Calumet threw at them, causing them to retreat back into a 1-2-2 trap style defensively, rather than play with the same aggression they had against Hancock and Houghton.

“I thought we competed hard,” Garrow said. “Against these three teams, I thought we handled ourselves well.”

Calumet continued to put the pressure on Marquette, forcing the Redmen to take two penalties in the opening period and allow the Copper Kings to come away with a 12-3 shots advantage.

Bergwall was a big reason why the Copper Kings only had a 1-0 lead until just after Calumet’s third power play early in the middle period.

As Redmen sophomore Tanner Phillips returned to the ice from the penalty box, Calumet’s Ed Beiring moved the puck back to senior Jack Sturos in the left circle. Sturos pushed the puck back to the blue line to Trevor Johnson, who slid over to the middle of the rink and unleashed a slap shot that Bergwall never saw — with Loukus creating traffic in front — and the puck slipped past him at 4:42.

After the second goal, the Redmen finally settled down and began to try to turn the tables on Calumet by pressuring freshman Alex Studebaker, who had seen just four shots up to that point.

Three minutes after it became 2-0, Studebaker came up with stops on back-to-back rushes by the Redmen. The first came off the stick of Joseph Phillips on a wrist shot from the left circle, the next 21 seconds later off a pass in the slot by Elliot Samppala to Sean O’Connor.

A minute later, Tanner Phillips had a chance during a 2-on-1 with Samppala but again, Studebaker was there to make the stop.

Early in the third, the Copper Kings cashed in one more goal. During another power play, Beiring found a soft spot in the slot and he quickly fired a shot off a pass from Rory Anderson for a tally at 6:20.

Studebaker finished with 17 saves to earn the shutout.

Marquette opens the MHSAA Division 2 regional tournament at 7 p.m. Monday against Escanaba at Lakeview Arena in Marquette. Negaunee hosts Kingsford at the same time against Kingsford, with those winners squaring off later in the week.

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