Waupaca drops two games
By Greg Seubert
Home ice was not much of an advantage for the Waupaca boys’ hockey team at its holiday tournament.
The Comets fell to 5-6 on the season with a pair of losses at the tournament, held Dec. 27-29 at the Waupaca Ice & Expo Center.
Waupaca opened the three-team tournament Dec. 27 with a 4-1 loss to the WMS Storm, a co-op team of suburban Milwaukee schools, before dropping a 4-2 decision Dec. 29 to West Bend.
WMS Storm 4, Waupaca 1
Dominic Murano had a hand in all four of the Storm’s goals.
He found the net twice before assisting on Matthew Ebersole’s goal five minutes into the game.
Neither team scored again until Davis Levine’s power-play goal off of an assist from Garret Bohm and Vin Nikolai cut the lead to 3-1 with just under three minutes to go in the game.
However, Murano completed his hat trick with an empty-net goal in the final minute.
The Comets outshot the Storm 37-31.
“I thought we had better energy and outplayed them for most of that game, but you can’t go down 3-0,” coach John Erspamer said. “You can’t spot a team three goals at the varsity level and expect to come back.”
West Bend 4, Waupaca 2
Three second-period goals gave the Ice Bears a 4-0 lead.
Coltin Parisien scored in the first period and Andrew Butler, Chase Pickett and Andy Ribecky added goals in the second.
Both of Waupaca’s goals came in the third period. Jack Erspamer scored off of an assist from Levine and James Sternweis made it 4-2 off an assist from Liam DeZurik-Otto and Jadyn Schulke.
“I expect us to play a little bit better in the defensive zone,” Erspamer said. “They got three of their four (goals) off of transition rushes. (Goalie) Hagen (Rasmussen) will be the first to tell you he wishes he had a couple of those back.
“They were a little frustrated with themselves between the second and the third (period),” he said. “The chatter in the locker room was that they had lost focus and lost the control of their emotions. We talk about that all the time. Your emotions have to work for you and not against you and there were times where our emotions got the best of us and they worked against us. They were not happy with themselves and how they played the last 10 minutes of the second period. I said, ‘We’ll then you have to go out and do something about it.’”
Waupaca outshot the Ice Bears 32-23 and had a 14-3 advantage in the third period.
“We outshot them and I thought we outplayed them drastically in the third period,” Erspamer said. “It’s a little too late and that’s been kind of our problem throughout the year. We were as good as they were. We just couldn’t put the puck in the net. We had golden opportunities and their goalie played great. What are you going to do?”
The Comets will return to Great Northern Conference play at 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 2, at Medford before facing Mosinee at 5 p.m. Friday, Jan. 3, in a conference matchup at the K.B. Willett Ice Arena in Stevens Point. Waupaca will head back to Stevens Point Saturday, Jan. 4, for the second day of the Community Parks Foundation Classic to face Stevens Point or Stoughton at 5 p.m. or 7 p.m.