In front of a packed house at Marathon ParK, The Wausau West Warriors played host to the Antigo Red Robins in a fast-paced, high-spirited game on Tuesday night. Each team had several good scoring chances, and West cashed in on more of theirs to take a 5-2 win.

Wausau West got on the board just 2:22 into the first period when Christian Bardarson redirected a point shot from Nate Newman that got past Antigo goalie Ben Bartletti.

Seven minutes into the game, Alex Nagel caught a pass while behind the West defense and came in on Warriors goalie Paul Weise all alone. Nagel made a move to his backhand and had an opening, but lost control of the puck.

The Warriors scored a second goal in the first period off a face-off in the Robins zone. Hunter Ricklefs won the draw right back to Brandon Thorson, who fired a shot over Bartletti’s shoulder.

Antigo got that one back thirty seconds later when CJ Levis scored off assists from Ben Jansen and Jack Shinners. The Robins had another opportunity when Adam Schmidt got behind the West defense, but he shot wide of the net.

With the first period winding down, the Robins tried to dump the puck into the Warriors zone and get a line change, but they didn’t get it deep enough, and West came down on a three on one. Tick-tack-toe passing from Ricklefs to Sam Techel to Nick Techel gave Wausau a 3-1 lead with just seven tenths of a second to go.

Wausau West goalie Paul Weise made six saves in the first period, while Bartletti stopped nine.

The only scoring in the second period came while the Warriors were skating short-handed. Bardarson was battling a defenseman for the puck behind the Robins net. Bardarson came up with the puck and passed it to Nick Techel who was standing all by himself in front of Bartletti. Bartletti dropped down, Techel shot high, and West had a 4-1 lead they would take into the second intermission.

Bartletti stopped 14 shots in the second period, while Weise blocked all 7 that he saw.

West expanded their lead seven minutes into the third when Zach Pearson knocked in a rebound of a point shot from Newman.

The Robins managed to get another skater with the puck behind the West defense. This time it was Tyler Husnick who got the puck and he fired a shot from the left face-off circle and scored to make it 5-2, but with only 1:02 to play in the game.

Paul Weise finished up with 22 saves in the game for Wausau West. Ben Bartletti ended with 29 for the Robins.