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Stars fall to Neenah in huge Badgerland matchup

By Dustin Riese, Times Villager, 01/14/18, 3:00AM CST

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Mason Marquardt leads Rockets with a pair of goals

NEENAH – Rivalry week is always a special time for high school athletics as generally teams bring their best effort to the table. For the Fox Cities Stars, Saturday nights rivalry matchup with Neenah/Hortonville/Menasha was amped up just a tad with very important implications riding on the matchup.

Not only are these teams conference rivals, but they both entered the evening tied for second place in conference and only a half game behind Waupun for the lead. Not to mention that they share the same arena for their home games, this equals the true definition of a great rivalry. With the winner keeping their conference title hopes alive, this game was quite possibly the most important game of the season thus far. Unfortunately for the Stars, it was Neenah who came out on top with a rather easy 4-0 victory.

Head Coach Chris Van Zeeland on the loss.

“Tonight, was a tough one for us to swallow,” he said. “We knew they were a good team (a top 10 team) in the state, and we felt we were ready to go. We just did not play well from start to finish and picked a bad night to not play our best game.”

Max Gutjahr was certainly up for a challenging task on the evening as the Rockets offense is one of the best in the state. Mix that with a defense that barely allows a goal and you can see why they are ranked where they are. It didn’t take long for the Rockets to strike as they flexed their muscles early in the first period. Just two minutes in to the game, and both teams at even strength, it was Cody Dias and Ethan Blaney leading the attack. Blaney found Mason Marquardt in front of the goal to deliver the first blow 1-0. The Rockets would only build their lead from that point.

After conceding a goal less than three minutes into the game, the Stars began to play right with the Rockets as Gutjahr and the defense rose to challenge when called upon. Unfortunately, Fox Cities struggled to generate much offensively sending only 11 shots at Preston Long all game long. That makes things hard for any offense to keep pace with the Rockets and they made them pay midway through the second when Marquardt picked up an unassisted goal for his second of the game to put Neenah in front 2-0 after two periods.

With what seemed like a 10-goal advantage, the Rockets kept the pressure on throughout the final period of action. Despite that, Gutjahr kept his team in the game to keep things close for a majority of the game. It was midway through the third when Neenah delivered the knockout blow. Approaching just six minutes remaining the Rockets capitalized on a loose puck as Drew Sutton picked up another unassisted goal to make things 3-0. The Rockets added one later in the final period as Alec Elkin finished things off for the Rockets 4-0.

The Stars will be back on the Ice Friday, when they host Appleton United for another important Badgerland conference game.

WiPH Game Summaries