Lumberjacks edge WarHawks on Wednesday, 3-1
January 12, 2017
Granite City 3 @ Willmar 1 - The Willmar WarHawks ran into a brick wall in David Mulligan who stopped 40 of 41 WarHawks shots as his Granite City Lumberjacks defeated Willmar 3-1 Wednesday night at the Willmar Civic Center.
The Lumberjacks entered the game as the top team in the NA3HL's West Division and jumped on the last-place WarHawks early when Keenan Lund converted on a power play. Kevin Swope was off on a hooking penalty.
From there, the WarHawks began to catch up in the shot differential, eventually taking an 11-10 shots edge into the first intermission.
The WarHawks seemed to command the second period but it was the Lumberjacks who found the back of the net. Willmar goaltender Alex Weissenborn dove to poke a puck away from a would-be shooter but Brady Dahl picked up the rebound and beat Weissenborn to put the game at 2-0 with just more than a minute left in the period.
With 11:50 remaining in the third period, the WarHawks got on the board with some nice stickhandling and a pinpoint shot from Danny Nugent for his third goal of the year. The WarHawks kept up the pressure in the ensuing minutes and picked up the pace when they emptied the net with 2:02 remaining. Their best opportunity came with a Riley Tigrett break away but that Mulligan turned away and the Lumberjacks responded with an empty net goal.
Willmar outshot Granite City 41-37 and it's the team's highest shot total since the NA3HL Showcase in early December. Weissenborn made 34 saves in the loss.