Marquette’s Gaetano Cammarata, left, and Canton’s Hugo Fonovic go skate to skate during their high school hockey game at Lakeview Arena in Marquette on Saturday evening. (Journal photo by Corey Kelly)

“I think sometimes it’s good to get down right away. It kind of wakes you up a little bit and gets you in the right mindset.” — Doug Garrow, head coach, Marquette hockey

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MARQUETTE — The Marquette Senior High School varsity hockey team opened its annual Holiday Showcase tournament with a 4-2 win over downstate Canton at Lakeview Arena on Saturday night.

Two third-period goals from Andrew Fedrizzi and Ansel Frost made the difference as the Redmen improved to 8-2 on the season ahead of Sunday’s finale against Sault Ste. Marie.

Fedrizzi’s go-ahead tally came with 7:11 remaining in the third period while Frost added insurance with 2:16 to play. Those goals all but sealed the win for Marquette and gave Fedrizzi and Frost two-point nights.

MSHS freshman goaltender Liam Beerman made 18 saves on 20 shots in the winning effort.

The Redmen faced some early adversity. The Chiefs (3-6) got the game’s first goal just under three minutes in on a shot from Declan Ohare.

For MSHS head coach Doug Garrow, the early deficit may have served as a good thing for his team.

“I think sometimes it’s good to get down right away,” he said. “It kind of wakes you up a little bit and gets you in the right mindset like ‘Hey, we’re in a hockey game here.’

“They got a quick one but I thought both of their goals were on (us for) our part. We had four turnovers (in the first period) and two that cost us there. Once they got that first goal, I thought we responded pretty good up front.”

Marquette tied things up less than five minutes after falling behind on a Dylan Baldwin goal that was assisted by Fedrizzi, then took the lead with under two minutes left in the opening period when Ethan Phillips found the back of the net with assists going to Jacob Garrow and Jakob Peterson.

But Canton retied it 2-2 just 24 seconds later with a goal from Joel Fonovic that left the game knotted entering the first intermission.

Shots were 14-10 in favor of the Redmen after the first 17 minutes, with Beerman stopping eight and Chiefs junior goaltender Michael Renze 12. At that point, Renze was pulled in favor of senior goalie Jaxon Taylor, who finished the night with 25 saves on 27 shots over the final two periods.

Taylor was strong in net, and was one of the factors of why the score remaining 2-2 until the third period.

“I thought Canton’s goalie played really well,” Doug Garrow said. “They switched the goalie after the first, and I thought (Taylor) had a tremendous second and third period.

“We had a hard time getting pucks by him until we started moving side to side. We were trying to get him to move side to side more, and our third goal we did get him moving, while our fourth goal was just a hard-working goal by Frost which gave us the little cushion there at the end.”

Fedrizzi’s game-winner came 4-on-4 after both teams took too many men on the ice penalties, with he and Frost using the open ice to their advantage.

Frost fed a pass to Fedrizzi, who passed it back to Frost, who then immediately sent it back to Fedrizzi on the right side to put it into a wide-open net, making it 3-2.

Frost added his late insurance goal after he forced a steal in front of the net and backhanded the puck past Taylor to make it 4-2.

The Chiefs had a 6-on-4 opportunity after a late hooking penalty on Marquette’s Cooper Anderson and Taylor going to the bench for an extra attacker, but were unable to capitalize as the Redmen hung on in the closing moments.

Anderson’s penalty was only Marquette’s third of the night, but Garrow said discipline is still something he will stress going forward.

“One of (the penalties) was hooking at the end, which is a stick infraction that we need to get rid of, and the too many men on the ice was a bad penalty on our end, too,” he said. “We’ve got to eliminate those penalties.

“The aggressive penalties I don’t have a problem with, it’s the stick infractions and the lazy penalties and mental mistakes I have a problem with.”

MSHS killed off all three Canton power plays, but the Chiefs penalty kill was just as strong, holding the Redmen 0 for 5 on the man advantage.

Final shots were 41-20 in favor of Marquette.

In the other game of the Showcase on Saturday, Kingsford topped Sault Ste. Marie 5-1.

Email Ryan Spitza at sports@miningjournal.net.