The Antigo Red Robins faced a familiar foe in Thursday night’s regional final at the Langlade County Ice Arena, having played and beaten the Lakeland Thunderbirds twice this season in Great Northern Conference play. The third time was more of the same, as the Robins advanced to sectional play with a 7-1 win over the T-Birds.

It took Alex Nagel 18 seconds to get Antigo on the board. He caught a pass in the neutral zone from Zach Levis and quickly got behind the Lakeland defense, then put a move on T-Bird goalie Nathan Pitek.

With 9:39 to go in the first period, CJ Levis knocked in a rebound of an Andrew Turunen point shot to put the Robins up 2-0. A couple minutes later, Nagel circled the offensive zone twice then found an open lane, dropped down into the slot and fired a shot from into the top of the net to make it 3-0 Antigo.

“We had a great start to the game,” said Antigo head coach Matt Borneman. “And we continued to control the pace throughout. Pitek made some really impressive saves tonight.”

The first period ended with 18 saves for Pitek, while on the other end of the ice, Antigo goalie Ben Bartletti stopped all 4 shots he saw.

About three minutes into the second period, Ben Jansen gained control of the puck along the left side boards and fought his way to the slot, then to the top of the crease, from where he put a shot past Pitek to  make it 4-0 Antigo.

A couple minutes later, Jack Shinners fired a shot towards the net from the left point. Elijah Wickersheim was camped at the top of the crease and got his stick on the puck to redirect it past Pitek and give the Robins a 5-0 lead.

The Thunderbirds would get their only goal of the night while they were short-handed. After a brief battle for the puck on the Lakeland blue line, Wesley Bauer got control and a clear lane to the Antigo net. He skated in alone and put a move on Bartletti and cut the robins lead to four goals.

The Robins answered quickly, with two goals just seconds apart. The first one came when Eric Langseth dropped down into the slot from his right defense post and got a pass from Tyler Husnick. Langseth had time to pick a corner and didn’t miss, gong top shelf. Just moment later, Wickersheim made some moves at the inside edge of the left face-off circle and shot low stick-side to make it 7-1 in favor of the Robins.

“I thought we moved the puck well tonight, spreading out the ice and transitioning through the neutral zone,” added Borneman.

In the second period, 17 Saves for Pitek and 2 for Bartletti.

There was no scoring in the running-time third period, as both squads got to use their entire benches, with Noah Sennholz playing in goal for the Robins in the final minutes.

Borneman was pleased with his team’s efforts on the night, “All four lines played well tonight. Everyone generated some good scoring opportunities.”

Antigo advances to the sectional semi-final, where they will take on Steven Point, who beat Northland Pines 8-1. That game will be on Tuesday night in Antigo.