Portage Northern 5 Kalamazoo Blades 2

Portage Northern jumped out to an early lead tonight and never looked back as they defeated their league rival Kalamazoo Blades, 5-2. Less than 2 minutes into the game, Northern's Kevin Campbell tipped a hard pass from Nicco Braganini into the goal. The Blades appeared to even the score shortly thereafter when Dan Merkle fired a wrister over the shoulder of Huskie goalie Barry Toornman. The official immediately waved off any signal of a goal saying afterwards, "it was clearly off the post".

At the 5:20 mark of the first period, Braganini was credited with his first goal of the evening. The Huskies had several players out front and the puck found a home in the back of the net. Matt Duris and Campbell assisted. With only 34 seconds remaining in the first period, Braganini scored the eventual game winner when he received a pass from Doug Wheelright. Campbell also assisted.

There were no penalties in the first period, but the same can't be said for the second as both teams combined for 7 minor penalties. Both teams played perfectly on the penalty kill, though. Travis Tuma ended a scoreless second period when he fired a wrister over the glove of Lloyd. Duris and Rob Fender assisted on the goal to give Northern a 4-0 lead. The Blades finally got on the board when Scotty Simmons intercepted the puck in the Huskies defensive zone and ripped a shot past a surprised Toornman.

Merkle, who rang one of the post earlier, finally notched his goal at the start of the third period. The Blades won the opening faceoff of the period and Simmons found Merkle on the back door to make the score 4-2. The pace of the third period picked up and both teams had numerous scoring chances. The Blades were awarded a 5 minute powerplay late in the period when Northern's Matt Norman was called for a major penalty. The Huskie penalty killers did an outstanding job to prevent any more goals by the Blades. Fender added an empty net goal to end the scoring.