Two goals in the third period by Alex Nagel broke open a game that had been deadlocked for 31 minutes and allowed the Antigo Red Robins to take the final step in earning a trip to the State Tournament by defeating the Wausau West Warriors 3-1 on Saturday afternoon at the Greenheck Fieldhouse in Schofield.

In each of the last three regular seasons, the Robins have won at least 20 games, owned the Great Northern Conference, and garnered numerous individual awards. But the path to the State Tournament has been blocked each season by Wausau West, with 7-2 losses on the small ice up in Eagle River, and the slow ice at KB Willet Arena. This time they took the show to the big ice at DC Everest’s rink.

It didn’t look good for Antigo in the first period, which was played primarily in the Robins defensive zone. After chasing the puck around their end for the first minute and a half, Antigo got the puck down to the other end. CJ Levis passed the puck from down in the corner to Andrew Turunen who threw it towards the West goal. Wausau goalie Paul Weise got his body positioned in front of the puck, but it somehow managed to trickle through an opening to give Antigo a surprising lead.

The lead held up for nine and a half minutes until Nick Techel and Christian Bardarson came skating into the Robins end on a two on two. Techel passed across to Bardarson, who had shifted wide and out of the reach of the Robin defender. Bardarson had time and a good angle to pick the top corner over Antigo goalie Ben Bartletti’s right shoulder.

Much of the remaining time in the period was spent in the Antigo end, with Bartletti chalking up 14 saves in the frame, while Weise stopped 8 shots.

After regrouping in their locker room, the Robins came out and took control of the game in the second period, out shooting the Warriors 12-6, but could not get a puck past Weise. Their best chance came when a pass from Tyler Husnick turned a three on one into a two on oh, but Zack Levis lost control of the puck after putting a move on Weise.

Antigo got one more chance at the end of the period when Nagel caught a pass at the West blue line and came charging in on net as the seconds ticked down. As Nagel was nearing the net, he was trying to settle the bouncing puck, and Weise saw his opportunity to make a lunging poke-check to knock the puck away.

Coming back to the bench after the second intermission, Antigo coach Matt Borneman posed the question, “How the (heck) did we not score in that period?”

The third period was an even defensive battle until Nagel intercepted a West breakout pass just inside the Wausau blue line. He had a clear lane to the net, skated about halfway in and then picked the corner over Weise’s right shoulder to give Antigo another lead with just over nine minutes to play.

It only took another minute to double that lead. Elijah Wickersheim passed the puck from the left circle to Nagel in the slot. Nagel took a shot which Weise stopped, but Nagel beat the West defenseman to the rebound and put that in for a 3-1 lead.

The final eight minutes were spent with the Robins flipping the puck out of their zone, dumping the puck into the Warriors’ zone, and trying not allow West any good scoring chances.

Bartletti ended the game with 30 saves, and Weise recorded 26.