After a bus ride of over an hour, plus waiting 20 minutes extra for the pomp and circumstance of the home team's Parents Night, one might think that visiting Neenah/Hortonville/Menasha would be sluggish and at a disadvantage while taking on #2 SPASH at the KB Willett Arena Thursday night.
One would be wrong.
The tenth-ranked Rockets did take a while to get started, as the hosts scored first when Cole Caufield fired a shot from below the right circle and beat NHM goalie Preston Long for a 1-0 lead at the 6:38 mark.
The rest of the period was all Rockets.
Dillon Fox scored three minutes later when he took a pass from behind the net and beat Point goalie Phil Trzebiatowski from the mid-slot to tie the contest.
The guests took a 2-1 lead a few minutes later while on the power play.
Tyler Hafeman punched in the goal at 13:22 to take a lead which the Rockets would never relinquish.
One minute later, Mason Marquardt grabbed a loose puck in the right corner and sent it on net, and when the puck bounced free, Ethan Long deposited the biscuit into the net for the 3-1 lead.
After a SPASH penalty with less than a minute remaining in the period, the Rockets took advantage and made it a three-goal game.
With just six seconds left, Hafeman pounced on a rebound for a power play goal.
The score was 4-1, with NHM holding a 13-6 shot edge in the period.
The middle period saw 23 minutes of penalties, including a five-minute CFB, a game misconduct, delay of game, and an illegal equipment penalty (playing with a broken stick).
Despite all that, only two goals were scored, although there were a few close calls.
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Alec Elkin clanked the puck off the right post from the right side while the Rockets were on a power play early in the period.
Less than two minutes later, SPASH had a 3-on-1 as Cole Beilke came out of the box to join the odd man rush for the Panthers, but Long rejected a shot to negate the threat.
A couple minutes later, the CFB penalty left NHM's Travis Treml with a gash to the left side of his face that caused a ten minute delay for ice clean-up due to blood on the playing surface. After getting patched up by the crack medical staff, Treml switched from his usual #14 to the #49 jersey and re-joined the fray.
Three more infractions caused a 3-on-3 situation, and Elkin took advantage of it.
The junior forward got the puck in the neutral zone and set sail down the left side. He took the puck in deep, deked the goalie, and flipped a backhander into the net to give the guests a 5-1 lead.
Less than a minute later, Caufield scored to cut the lead to 5-2. Shots were even at eight each in the middle period.
The final period saw five combined goals scored.
Caufield completed his hat trick at 5:45 to narrow the margin to 5-3.
Joshua Watkins got that goal back just two minutes later to make the tally 6-3. Forty-two seconds later, Elkin made a nice move, skating in on Trzebiatowski, and when the Point goalie committed, Elkin slid the puck around the outstretched left pad of the netminder to increase the lead to 7-3.
Three minutes later, Jacob Beilke scored from the low right side to make it 7-4, but Elkin's empty-netter with less than a minute finished the scoring.
SPASH won the shot edge in the final period, 10-7, but it was not enough to earn the win.
Hafeman and Elkin each had two assists for the Rockets, while Cole Beilke had a pair of helpers for SPASH.
Long stopped 20 shots in earning the win for NHM, while Trzebiatowski made 19 saves for the Panthers.
