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Lady Stars knock off Appleton United with strong five minute stretch

By Dustin Riese, Times Villager, 01/23/18, 7:15PM CST

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Jablonski, Hull lead Fox Cities to 5-1 victory

NEENAH – The Fox Cities Lady Stars have found themselves in tough times lately as victories have been hard to come by. With just one win in their past six games, the Stars entered the week hoping to gain some confidence ahead of the conference tournament next weekend.

It was an Eastern Shores Conference matchup against the biggest rival Appleton United Monday night that quite possibly could be the game that once again gets them on the winning track. Despite a rough start to the game with the Stars appearing flat, Fox Cities rebounded nicely to use a strong five-minute stretch of play to pull away 5-1 for the victory.

“It was a good win for us tonight,” Head Coach Jeff Fox said. “As a team, we are very tired coming off a weekend with four games. You could see that early on as we appeared just a step slow. I think after we got our legs under us in that first period we began to play more freely which led to a strong showing the rest of the way.”

This did not get off to a great start as Appleton United exposed the sluggish Stars early. The opening five minutes of the game saw very little positive puck movement from Fox Cities as the opening minutes of the game was played mostly on their half of the ice. That meant that goalie Hattie Berndt needed to be alert and ready as United was attacking from all directions. Just over three minutes into the game, it was United striking first as Liisa Cramer took a Jade Cross assist and beat Berndt low for the 1-0 advantage. Fox Cities would bear down as their defense was the key the rest of the night.

Despite the ugly start to the game, the Stars weathered the storm and began settling in to play their style of hockey. As the rest of the first period went along, it was now Fox Cities controlling the puck as the rink was quickly tilted in their favor. With less than a minute to go and still held scoreless, the persistent effort of the Stars finally paid off. With a power play opportunity in hand, it was Madelynn Jablonski responding taking the Lauryn Hull and Morgan Treml assist to tie things up 1-1 after one period of hockey.

With new found life, the Stars were looking to build off that momentum as they dominated the second period of play. With five minutes gone by, it was the game winning goal from Alaina Schauf, as Jablonski and Hull were credited with the assists on the even strength opportunity putting the Stars in front 2-1. Despite dominating in every aspect of the period, the score remained a one goal game until the final five minutes of the period.

WiPH Game Summaries

It was at that time when Fox Cities put together one of their strongest stretches of hockey this season as they put in three goals in a two minute span. Starting at the 13:48 mark, Lexy Sesolak was the big story of the night as her goal was her first career varsity goal stretching thing out to 3-1. Just 20 seconds later it was another power play opportunity as Jablonski fired one top shelf for what appeared be her second goal of the night. However, Hull got a stick on the shot and was rewarded the goal off the deflection. Fox Cities was still not done as Jablonski capped off the scoring with one minute remaining in the period as the Stars held a 5-1 lead after two periods of ice time.

With a comfortable four goal lead, the Stars needed to just remain focused to pick up the victory. However, it was Appleton United dominating the third period the shots were coming from every direction. That didn’t seem to bother Berndt, who after the first goal of the game was perfect in goal as Fox Cities picked up dominating 5-1 win ending the losing streak.