The Superior Spartans and Notre Dame Academy Tritons came out of the gate flying in the opener of the Red Flint Meltdown in Eau Claire on Friday night. Both teams raced up and down the ice, but were kept away from the other's net. Then just four minutes into the game, Collin Appleton threw the puck towards the net from a bad angle along the goal line.Spartan goalie Paxton Paine dropped down, and the puck found a way between his pads and into the net for an early Tritons lead.

The goal seemed to take Superior off of their game, and NDA struck for two more easy goals by Collin and Mason Appleton in the next four minutes to build a 3 - 0 lead. Superior coach Jason Kalin called his time out to address his team and right the ship. The strategy worked and the Spartans kept the Tritons away from their goal for the rest of the period. Superior got on the board with a power play goal from Beau Reder with just 20 seconds left in the period.

Notre Dame capitalized on a Superior penalty early in the third period with Anton Brix putting in a pass from Mason Appleton at 5:07. That was all the scoring in the second period, as each team fought hard to protect the space in from of their goals.

Early in the third period, Mason Appleton drew the attention of all the Spartan defenders as he juked and weaved his way around the Superior zone and then fed a pass to a wide-open Sam McCormick on the back door for an easy tap in goal at 1:39. Brett Gruber finished off the scoring for NDA at 8:04 with help from Jared Zirbel.

Superior goalie Paxton Paine finished with 20 saves, while Eli Hicks of Notre Dame had 18.