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Fundamentals, Hustle and Teamwork Lead Waunakee to Win

By Del Scanlon, WiPH, 01/08/22, 8:30PM CST

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Every practice coaches preach fundamentals and work their drills. There is the outlet pass drill, the cycling drill and as a rite of passage you hear players complain that the drills are boring. Coaches can be heard yelling during practice for players to hustle for the loose puck, fight for the puck in the corners and you need to want it more than the other player. Why do I bring this up when we are looking for the results for what happened in Wisconsin Prep Hockey's game of the week, because they all came into play during the game.

The first period of the game found the Janesville Bluebirds giving a perfect example of how an outlet pass can work. Tyler Steuck took the puck along the far boards and passed the puck to Ian Perkins. Perkins found Jake Schaffner along the near boards by the scorer's table and made the perfect pass. Schaffner skated in and fired the puck into the net putting Janesville up by one at 5:21 of the first period. Waunakee continued to work hard in the offensive zone. McCarthy Reed took the puck down behind the net working the puck and located Pavel Rettig in the low slot. Retting had his eyes up and found teammate David Emerich at the backdoor, where Emerich one-timed the puck into the goal tying the game at 1 with 5:59 left in the first period. The period came to an end with the game tied at 1.

Janesville started the second period on the power play, but it was Waunakee taking advantage. The puck was being passed by the Bluebirds in the offensive zone, but it rebounded off of David Emerich's shin pads towards the blueline. Emerich hustled and beat everyone to the puck skating in on Janesville's goaltender with Ian Perkins trying to apply pressure from behind. Emerich was able to get the shot off and past Jaicy Campbell to give the Warriors a 2-1 at 0:21 of the second with a short-handed goal.  Waunakee was able to add another goal at 1:48, when Joe Thousand assisted on Pavel Rettig's goal. McCarthy Reed made it 4-1, when he scored with an assist from David Emerich at 3:53 of the second. Waunakee kept hustling and Kevin Schufreider scored with Jack Witanen and McCarthy Reed assisting with 7:28 remaining in the second period. David Emerich exhibited his speed and hustle again at 13:14 of the period scoring his second unassisted goal to complete a hat-trick for the game. Waunakee completed the scoring for the game at 15:55 of the period as McCarthy Reed scored a short-handed goal putting Waunakee up 7-1.

The third period was scoreless with the game in runtime for the entire period. Jaycie Campbell finished the game with 30 saves, while Logan Walmer had 28 saves for Waunakee.

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