After two periods of play at the South Wood County Rec Center Tuesday night, Wausau West and host Wisconsin Rapids stood dead even on the scoreboard, with each team showing two goals.
Six minutes into the final stanza, West led 6-2 and Rapids could not recover, dropping a 7-2 decision to the visitors.
In a game that had serious repercussions on the Wisconsin Valley Conference race, West improved to 8-1 while Rapids dropped to 6-2 in league play.
The only penalty of the contest was called on West six minutes in and Rapids took advantage of it.
Cody Kohls pushed back a rebound under the left pad of West goalie Paul Weise for an early 1-0 lead. Isaac Gilbert and Logan Conkey were credited with assists on the play.
The rest of the period had good pace with both teams skating hard, but neither could put the puck in the net as Weise stopped nine shots for West and Tanner Reany made 11 saves on the other end for Rapids.
The Warriors (15-2-1) had a couple chances early in the middle period, but Nick Techel's shot off a steal clanked off the left post and Cale Bowman was denied on a nice blocker save by Reany.
The home team extended the lead to 2-0 midway through the period.
Conkey skated behind the net with the puck and passed it out to Colton Flammini and the freshman buried the puck in the upper corner from the left circle with just over nine minutes left.
Then West turned up the forecheck pressure and didn't allow Rapids to escape from their d-zone for a minute and capitalized as the Raider skaters ran out of gas.
Techel scored at the 8:20 mark, with help from Josh Bohlin and Derek Yolitz to make it 2-1, and then Frank Dovorany tied it just over a minute later when he grabbed a loose puck in the left circle and fired a hard shot on the ice that found the back of the net for the unassisted goal.
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Four minutes later, the West crowd thought that their squad had taken the lead as the puck was shot on goal and disappeared under the goalie, but after the whistle had blown, Reany scrambled to his feet and the puck was clearly in the blue of the crease.
No goal, as the visiting fans groaned.
The teams skated off tied at two moments later, with Reany stopping 17 shots in the period, as opposed to a pair of saves for Weise.
The final period was all West as Christian Bardarson grabbed a rebound after a 3-on-1 West break and made the score 3-2. Max Techel had an assist on the play.
The Warriors continued their scoring ways five minutes later, scoring a pair of goals in a span of six seconds.
First, Nate Newman grabbed a long rebound and scored from the high slot and then Nick Techel took the next face off into the same area and his unassisted goal made it 5-2 in favor of West.
Brandon Thorson scored from the right dot just under a minute later, sending Reany to the bench in favor of Tyler Werne. Alex Zahn had an assist on the play that made it 6-2.
A minute later, Bowman scored on a rebound, with assists to Max Zingler and Bardarson to account for the final score.
Weise stopped all eights shots fired at him in the period, finishing with 19 saves on the night.
Reany (5) and Werne (6) combined for 11 saves for Rapids, who dropped to 13-6 on the year. Reany ended with 33 saves on the night.
