Three days after scoring a hat trick in an 11-0 drubbing of the Madison La Follette/East Lakers, Wildcat junior forward Jack Anderson was back at it Friday inside the Verona Ice Arena. Anderson scored four goals, including three short-handers and a powerplay tally in a 7-4 against Big Eight rival Madison Memorial.

As the team’s leading returning scorer, Anderson said it felt good to be able to step up for his team.

“I was lucky to get a couple of nice chances from my linemates tonight,” he said. “Hopefully, we can keep the scoring going and hopefully it spreads to other players as well.”

Despite a big night by Anderson, the Big Eight rivals exchanged goals throughout the first two periods Friday before a pair of penalties turned the tide inside the Verona Ice Arena. 

A minute after Verona evened the score with a Jack Anderson power-play goal, the team’s top defense – Zach Lanz – was assessed a 2 and a 10 for head contact.

While the Wildcats were able to shutdown the Spartans on the power play, Memorial’s Jacob Padley scored his second even-strength goal seconds after the man-advantage expired.

Despite taking another penalty, Verona kept battling and once again drew even thanks to a fortuitous bounce. 

Limping toward the bench sophomore forward Graham Sticha saw the puck come right to his skates and alertly passed the puck to teammate Braeden Schindler. While Schindler wasn’t able to beat Memorial goaltender Ryan Kenny, Anderson was, roofing a game-tying short-handed goal at 10:25.

Once again Verona was unable to take the lead, however, as Memorial picked up its first power-play goal three-and-a-half minutes later to go up 3-2.

A checking from behind penalty to Spartan defenseman Jack Andringa with three seconds remaining in the second period turned the tide in Verona’s favor once and for all. Assessed a 5 and 10, Andringa’s penalty forced Memorial to play nearly the entire third period without it’s top defenseman.

As a result, Verona scored five times in the final period (three times with Andringa in the box), including four on special teams. 

“Getting those three goals with Andringa in the box, that was huge,” Anderson said. “He’s a great player and quite a threat when he gets on the ice.”

Freshman Mason McCormick’s free-for-all goal in the fourth minute drew the Wildcats even for the third time before senior Josh Novotny stole the puck in the Spartans zone and fired the puck past Kenny for Verona’s first lead.

“We have a bunch of upperclassmen on this team and winning conference is a goal for them,” Verona head coach Joel Marshall said. “These games always come back to bite us if we lose and early sectional or conference game.”

Junior Jacob Keyes then helped the Wildcats go up two with the Wildcats third goal in the 11:35 of the third period before Andringa returned to the ice and immediately helped setup a Hunter Straka power-play goal a Memorial pulled the goalie with 2:37 remaining.

Anderson iced any chance of a comeback with a pair of empty-net short-handed goals.

“It was all about getting possession of the puck in the offensive end. If we were able to get possession it may have been a different story,” Memorial head coach Jon Spencer said. “We just went with our gut feeling and just wanted to keep the momentum going. If it works it looks great and if it doesn’t, people wonder what were you doing? But I’m willing to live with that. We wanted to aggressive and go after it.”

Verona senior Nathan Cleghorn stopped 20 shots on goal, including 17 over the final two periods, while Kenny finished with 23 saves for Memorial.

The victory improved Verona to 2-2-1 overall (2-0-0 conference), while Memorial dropped to 3-1-0 overall (1-1-0).

Despite making a run to the WIAA state semifinals last year, Spencer acknowledged this is a different team.

“We’re definitely a younger team,” he said. “So it’s a matter of how quickly can we get our younger guys to step up and play more like veterans. We made a lot of mistakes in this game, and give Verona credit, they capitalized on a much of those.”

For Verona’s part, Anderson called the victory a statement-win for the Wildcats.

“This is a crucial win for us early in the season,” he said. “It’s a great conference win, which gets us some momentum. Hopefully, we can keep it going against West and then Notre Dame on Saturday.

Verona hosts Madison West (0-3-1, 0-2-0) at 7 p.m. Friday before traveling to Cornerstone Ice Arena on Saturday for a 6:30 p.m. game against seventh-ranked Green Bay Notre Dame (2-1-0).

The Wildcats return to conference action at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 15 on the road against Sun Prairie (3-0-0, 2-0-0).