The University School boys’ hockey team defeated Stevens Point 3-2 in overtime to take third place in the Joe Raymond Memorial Hockey Classic at Nagawaukee Ice Arena in Delafield Saturday afternoon.

Vadim Sukhanov scored the overtime goal to give USM the victory in a clean, fast-paced game.

USM’s head coach Cal Roadhouse said, “I thought we played really well today.  I told the guys after the first period that it was the best period we’d played all year.  We back checked, we picked up sticks in front of our net, we took shots and out shot them 32 to 22, we played our positions properly, we played the body, and we moved the puck well.  It was a good effort, especially after the two previous lackluster games.”

Playing the body led to USM’s first goal early in the second period.  Like he was derailing a train, USM senior defenseman Joey Judge checked a SPASH forward skating into the USM zone.  Judge nimbly stepped around the falling opponent and grabbed the loose puck.  He threaded a pass into space ahead of junior Vadim Sukhanov, who curled off his back check and was speeding out of the zone.  Sukhanov raced past the Stevens Point defensemen, collected the puck, and headed into the Panthers’ zone on a breakaway.  From the slot, Sukhanov buried the puck into the upper corner of the net over the stick of SPASH’s goalie Michael Storch at 1:04.

SPASH quickly tied it on a short-handed play.  Off a mishandled USM power play pass, Stevens Point forward Matt Dufresne gained control of the puck at the Panthers’ blue line and headed down ice on a 2-on-0 break with Jared Hucke.  Moving into the USM slot, Dufresne feathered a pass to Hucke who one-timed a low shot that went just inside the left pipe beyond the reach of USM’s junior goaltender Bryan Botcher at 2:34.

USM went back ahead on a well-developed power play opportunity early in the third period.  The Wildcats got the puck into the Stevens Point zone and adroitly began to move it around.  Eventually it went to junior Duncan Brown who passed it to senior Ben Walker on the sideboards.  Walker dexterously forwarded it Judge at the blue line.  Judge skated with it to the center of the line then blasted a shot past Storch to make it 2-1 USM at 4:18.

Stevens Point tied it back up on their own power play later in the period.  Avoiding a check on the USM mid-boards, Mason Czaidowski passed the puck to Dufresne at the center of the USM blue line.   Dufresne fired a shot through a screen and into the net at 11:08.

The game went into overtime, and USM won it at 1:53 of the extra eight-minute period.  The play began when junior defenseman Nelson Kies pinched down from the Stevens Point blue line and knocked the puck away from a Panther forward.  It caromed behind the net where a SPASH defenseman got it and began to skate out from behind the net.  Like a cat burglar, Brown swiped the puck, turned, and passed it through the legs of another SPASH defender to Sukhanov who was stationed unchecked in the high slot.  Sukhanov stepped in and beamed a laser into the upper reaches of the Stevens Point net to give USM the well-deserved 3-2 victory.

USM is now 7-5.  The Wildcats play again at 8:00 p.m. on Friday, January 4th when they travel to Appleton to take on the Appleton United co-op.