Defense! Defense!

What do you get when you have two of the best goalies in the state, with very strong, stingy defenses in front of them? You get 39 minutes of scoreless hockey before Alex Nagel worked his magic to put the Antigo Red Robins on the board, en route to a 2-0 win over the SPASH Panthers in a sectional semi-final game at the Langlade County Ice Arena on Tuesday night.

The defenses ruled the scoreless and penalty-free first period. The Panther defensemen were a bit more aggressive in holding the offensive blue line, and as a result kept play in the Antigo end more often. Robins' goalie Ryan Schmidt stopped ten shots in the period, while Nathan Siclovan had to save only three.

The second period saw more of the same, with just one penalty, and more even shooting. Each goal-tender was called on to stop ten shots in the second.

Four minutes into the third period, SPASH was flagged for tripping. After Schmidt stopped a short-handed attempt by the Panthers, Nagel picked up the puck in the right corner and headed up the ice. He weaved his way through the neutral zone, then made a nifty toe-drag move to get past a Point defenseman, finally firing a shot that just trickled through Sicolvan's pads and into the net.

With the lead, the Robins shifted into time-killing mode, content to move the puck to the outside and play keep-away. Gavin Bunnell was killing time behind the SPASH net when he was hauled down by a frustrated defenseman for another tripping call.

“Bunnell was our spark plug,” said Robins' head coach Matt Borneman. “He had some great shifts to get us going.”

The Panthers killed off the penalty, but with the puck still in their zone, Bunnell forced a turn-over. The puck came to Jed Weix, who tried passing across the slot to Arin VerHagen. The pass was blocked, and the puck came back to Weix, who sent a slapshot into the top right corner to give Antigo a little breathing room.

Borneman credited his goalie, and the team's discipline for the victory, “Ryan Schmidt came up big when we needed him. He kept us in the game.”

What also kept Antigo in the game was keeping out of the penalty box. “Our discipline helped us control the momentum of the game by staying out of the box,” added Borneman.

So now the Robins will travel north to Eagle River for a rematch of last season's sectional final against Wausau West on Saturday afternoon.

UPDATE:

After the games on Tuesday, the coaches involved in the sectional final requested a change of venue, so the game will be at 1:00 at KB WIllett Arena in Stevens Point.

Highlights from Wausau West vs. DC Everest and CW Storm vs. Point-Rapids. Antigo's two goals come in at around the one minute mark.