NEGAUNEE — The temperature dropped dramatically outside the Negaunee Ice Arena Thursday night, but inside, the Escanaba hockey team was warm and comfortable.

The Eskymos jumped out to a 2-0 lead and piled on from there as they defeated the Miners 6-1 and moved on to the MHSAA Division 2 regional final. Escanaba will play Marquette in the next round.

“That was our game plan,” Escanaba head coach Matt Hughes said. “We wanted to start early and start on time. To get the first goal, that’s always important, especially in the playoffs, and we were able to do that. I thought we played well. We did some very good things. We did some things that we need to clean up a little bit too in order to go further in the playoffs.”

Esky started putting pressure on the Negaunee defense and Miners goalie Ryan Kerkela from the opening puck drop. After Kerkela stopped the first four shots he faced, the Eskymos got one by him with 11:22 left in the opening period as Nick Kolich tapped a rebound into the back of the net.

At the other end, Esky kept the Miners from getting a clear shot on net. The only real scoring chance for Negaunee in the period came with about 1:20 remaining when Chad Pohlman skated into the slot and fired a shot at Eskymos goalie Trevor Denome, but he made the save.

Esky padded its lead to 2-0 a few seconds after that when Spencer Bourdeau got a pass from Kolich and beat Kerkela glove side.

About four minutes into the second period, the Eskymos almost picked up their third goal as the puck was sitting in the middle of the crease before Kerkela cleared it out.

Esky cashed in on its next chance, though, as Karson Krutina snapped a shot on net that Kerkela originally saved, but the puck trickled underneath his pads and into the net to put the Eskymos up 3-0.

With 3:38 left, Kolich almost got his second goal as he faked out Kerkela and tried to tuck the puck inside the left post, but Kerkela swung his leg around and got his foot on the puck to keep it out.

“I think he (Kerkela) did real well,” Miners head coach Dale Hopper said. “He covered up rebounds. That was the biggest thing. He was real good on his rebound control tonight. Just got a couple bad breaks in our own zone and there’s some things that he just can’t help and those were a couple of them.”

With 40 seconds left in the second period, the Eskymos notched their fourth tally as Sawyer LaMarch gathered a loose puck and beat Kerkela top shelf.

Negaunee almost got on the scoreboard in the closing seconds as Hunter Perry skated hard into the Esky defensive zone and got a good shot on net, but Denome deflected it out with his blocker to keep the score 4-0.

Barely two minutes into the third, the Eskymos extended their advantage to 5-0 on a tally by Kyle Krutina as the game appeared to be out of reach for the Miners.

However, Negaunee kept fighting and got one back with seven minutes remaining. With the Miners on the power play, Jack Mattias took a pass from Riley Luokkala and beat Denome low to cut Esky’s lead to four.

“I’m very proud on how they finished the game,” Hopper said. “They never gave up and just kept pushing and pushing. They finally got one goal in in the third period, so it was a good finish to us, at least in that way. They didn’t give up. They just kept pushing them.

“Coming from last season to this season, it’s a great improvement. Moving into the offseason, we’ve just got to work harder and hopefully, have a better season next year. We had six freshmen and two sophomores this year, so we had a very young team. So we’ve got a lot of young players coming back, too.”

Later in the third period, after Esky had a goal waved off due to a player kicking the puck into the net, the Eskymos finished off their scoring by getting a power play tally by Kolich.

“We had five different scorers, that’s really good to see,” Hughes said. “Our first two lines did very well. They got pucks low on net and cycled the puck really well. They worked hard and it paid off because those are the guys that were on the (score)sheet.”

Ryan Stieg can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 252. His email address is rstieg@miningjournal.net.