Over the last three weeks, the tenth-ranked Wausau East Lumberjacks have been one of the hottest teams in Wisconsin high school hockey. They continued that trend on a snowy Thursday evening at  the South Wood County Rec Center as they defeated host Wisconsin Rapids 4-0 in Wisconsin Valley Conference play.

Senior Dan Mansell started the scoring for East as he made it 1-0 with an assist from Thomas Trione at the 5:31 mark of the first period.

Toward the end of the period, East special teams played a huge part in another goal. 

Mike Mansell took advantage of a Rapids turnover and went off on a 2-on-0 break and buried his shot at 13:33 for an unassisted short-handed goal to increase the Lumberjacks' lead to 2-0.

"That was Mike's second or third short-hander in a month now," noted East coach Dan Bauer. "He sees the ice really well and he's fun to coach."

"You can't make mistakes on a team, especially a top-10 team," said Rapids coach Pat McDonald of the error that led to the score. 

The period ended with East holding an 8-5 shot edge over Rapids.

The second period was fairly even until Zach Comfort scored for East at the 8:27 mark to give East a 3-0 lead. Assists went to Vince Romanski and Henry Nuckles.

Rapids outshot the guests by a margin of 9-8 in the period and trailed by three goals after 34 minutes of play.

The third period saw seven penalties called between the two squads, but East was able to take advantage while on the power play.

Just over half-way through a Rapids penalty, three East seniors played tic-tac-toe to perfection.

Cody Buckli had the puck at the point and passed it to Mike Mansell at the top of the right circle. Mansell then threaded a pass through the slot to Romanski, who was calmly waiting on the doorstep, and he buried it past Rapids goalie Cole Paulsen for the final tally.

East held a huge shot edge in the final stanza, out-shooting the hosts 11-2.

East goalie Steve Gering had 16 stops for the Lumberjacks, who improved to 13-3 (7-1 WVC).

"Steve made some nice saves for us," said Bauer. "He didn't have a ton of them, but when he needed to be there he was there."

Paulsen--who was less than 100% due to the flu--stopped 23 shots for Rapids, who fell to 3-13 (2-5 in Valley play).  

"We're a lot better team than the first time we played them (a 9-1 East win)," noted McDonald. "But once you get down on a team like that, they don't give you many good opportunities.

"Hats off to them."