How often do you see a team score the first five goals of a game, unanswered, and still have to cope with an extra-man attack in the waning seconds of a hockey game?

That very phenomenon happened Tuesday night at the Ozaukee County Ice Center as the Cedarburg Bulldogs escaped with a 5-4 victory over their conference rivals, the Homestead Highlanders.

The Bulldogs used an aggressive style of offense to spread the ice and outshoot the Highlanders early, enjoying a 29-6 advantage in shots on goal by the end of the second period.

They also enjoyed a 4-0 lead where it mattered most: the scoreboard.

The Bulldogs scored twice in the first period and twice in the second, behind the strong senior leadership of assistant captain Danny Valoe, who accounted for a goal and an assist in the first two stanzas.

"We should be able to put this team away," said senior captain Nick Boehnlein. "And we showed it in the first two periods. We came out real strong."

Sophomore goaltender Tyler Jansen was seldom tested but still looked sharp in blanking the opponent for the first 34 minutes of the game. The Cedarburg defense especially looked sharp, preventing Homestead from not only mounting any scoring chance to speak of, but just making it difficult to connect on a routine pass.

"We know what they were trying to do," said West. "This is the third time we've played them, they try to stretch the ice...throughout the whole game, they didn't connect on those."

"I told the guys we were being picked apart," said Homestead Head Coach Chris Donovan. "We were sitting back and being observers. I told the guys (before the third period) that these people were looking for a game and were wondering where Homestead was."

With Cedarburg leading by four and on the power play early in the third period, Valoe fired a shot on net that was deflected by a Homestead player. The tally--which seemed like icing on the cake at the time--gave the Bulldogs a seemingly insurmountable 5-0 lead with 15:30 remaining in the game.

However, it all seemed much too easy up to this point, especially when you consider that these two teams--playing in their first official conference game this season--skated to ties in two previous meetings and had clinched a share of the North Shore Conference title.

Taking advantage of a tripping penalty on Cedarburg's Mitch Gall, Peter Schmitz redirected an Adam Connolly shot for the first Homestead goal of the night 5:08 into the third period.

88 seconds later, Schmitz was credited with another goal.

After Homestead was able to create more traffic in front of Jansen than a roundabout during rush hour, the official blew the whistle and called a goal, pointing behind the net, ending a barrage of sticks and skates that seemed to go on forever.

Forty seconds after that, the Bulldogs were whistled for interference. Schmitz scored off the power-play faceoff for the third goal--for him and Homestead--in the period, all of which came in a span of two minutes and 20 seconds.

"For Peter, that was nothing new," said Donovan. "He has just been the support beam for the whole team this year...this is what he does."

A Cedarburg timeout followed, but so did another Homestead tally.

Freshman Jon Weyker took advantage of a loose puck at center ice, skated up the wall and fired a wrist shot on goal. It beat Jansen on his stick side, and Homestead had trimmed the lead to one with more than six minutes to play.

"We said after the second period, we knew they could score in bunches," said West. "I thought five would be enough...it was."

"Once they got the (fourth goal), it was like 'oh, shoot,'" said Valoe. "We can't have this happen, everyone had to step it up a little bit."

The Highlanders, however, were never able to get the equalizer, as Cedarburg controlled the pace and the puck for most of the remaining minutes, preventing Homestead from even pulling the goaltender until there was around 30 seconds left in the game.

Going forward, the Bulldogs believe a game like this one, a close call against a rival that they still beat, can be valuable in what it does for their season.

"Oh, it's huge," said Boehnlein. "If we would've lost to them, it would've been tough. Especially the week we have ahead of us, it's big to have confidence like that."

Even though the teams split the conference title and in three games were only separated by a goal, Cedarburg felt the better team came out victorious tonight.

"I don't care if we win by one or we win by 20...we knew we were the better team," said West. "We knew we were going to win."