The Antigo Red Robins patiently built up a 4-goal lead, and then hung on to down the St. Mary's Springs Ledgers 4-2 in the Antigo Holiday Tournament on Saturday.

“We have to learn how to finish games,” said Robin's head coach Matt Borneman, after watching his team give up two goals in the final 3:20 to make the game less comfortable for the home team. “We controlled play and the tempo for most of the game, then lost our focus at the end. We took two lazy, retaliatory penalties and struggled putting the game away.”

Antigo got on the board early, at 4:36 in the first period when Arin VerHagen found Kyle West alone in front of the Springs net. West put his shot over Springs goalie Andrew Riehl and just under the cross bar. “We were able to get some production out of our third line today, and that helped set the stage,” said coach Borneman. Elijah Wickersheim doubled the Antigo lead at 13:19 with a power play goal from the edge of the left face-off circle.

Wickersheim increased the Robins lead to 3-0 at 6:07 in the second period with a nearly identical power play wrist shot from the same area on the other end of the ice. The Robins controlled the second period, thanks to a lot of power play time, out-shooting the Ledgers 16-4 in the frame.

Antigo added to that lead early in the third period when Alex Nagel broke through on a defensive zone face-off and raced up the left boards. He cleared the last Springs defenseman around the face-off dot and cut across the front of the net, slipping the puck between Riehl's pads as he moved across to follow.

Anthony Grebe got the Ledgers on the board with a power play goal from the right face-off circle with 3:20 to go in the third. Mark Austin made it 4-2 with just 45 seconds left when he stopped a shot by Jackson Voight from the point right in front of Antigo goalie Ryan Schmidt, who had dropped down to attempt to stop the shot himself. Austin then flipped the puck over a prone Schmidt.

For the game, Riehl stopped 33 of 37 shots, while Schmidt stopped 31 of 33.