UWRF men’s hockey team still unbeaten at 10-0

The UW-River Falls men’s hockey team has continued its undefeated season into WIAC play; the Falcons are now 10-0 and looking stronger than ever.

The team opened conference play on home ice at Hunt Arena on Thursday, Dec. 4. The Falcons came away with a convincing 7-3 win over the UW-Stout Blue Devils.

The first goal came at 5:51 in the first period from Mitch Kontny with an assists to Taylor Burden and Jeff Bergh, which gave the Falcons a 1-0 lead. Then at 16:02 of the first period, captain Blake Huppert scored a goal, extending the Falcons lead to 2-0 on the power play with an assist from Mike Fazio and Burden.

The Blue Devils were able to get on the board at 4:26 in the second period with a goal from Justin Moody. He was assisted by Craig Lindegard and Jake Useldinger to cut the Falcon lead to 2-1.

It took until 11:14 of the second period for any player to find a way to put the puck into the net. Fazio scored the goal for the Falcons on a power play with an assist from Huppert and Burden to extend the lead to 3-1.

Useldinger got his own goal for the Blue Devils with an assist by Danny Ray at 14:14 in the second period on a power play. The Blue Devils then only trailed 3-2.

At 14:27, the Falcons had an answer to the Blue Devils score. Danny Hamburg scored an unassisted goal for the Falcons upping its lead to 4-2. Kyle Gattelaro got the last goal of the second period with an assist by AJ Jarosz at 17:37. The Falcons led 5-2 after two periods.

Kontny opened up the third period just like he did in the first with his second goal of the game. This time it was at 2:20 and he was assisted by Cory Lushanko and Bergh to give the Falcons a 6-2 lead.

Useldinger was able to find the net one more time for the Blue Devils at 10:07 in the third period. He was assisted by Jordan Tredinnick.

At 14:37 of the third period, Ryan Doner was able to give the Falcons its final goal. He was assisted by Bergh and Gattelaro.

The Falcons outshot the Blue Devils 34-33, and went 2-3 on the power play, while goaltender Tanner Milliron finished with 30 saves.

“The guys got out of the gate really fast and I thought we set a really high pace in the game, we were moving really quickly, moving the puck well,” said Head Coach Scott Freeman. “Although, early in the game we had a lot of turnovers, but we were kind of able to overcome those defensively by guys coming back and picking up their checks and things like that. So it was a really high paced game, a lot of hitting. The guys made some great plays and we were able to create a lot of offense -- that was really encouraging.”

The Falcons then turned around and traveled to UW-Superior on Friday, Dec. 5. At 11:00 of the second period, Doner scored a power play goal, which was the only goal of the game. He was assisted by Kontny and Mike Dietrich.

The Falcons won the WIAC matchup 1-0 over the Yellowjackets. Milliron made 37 saves in the game and registered his second shutout of the season.

"They took it to use pretty good in the first period and outplayed us badly, and as the game went on the second period we played better, and then the third period we got it going,” Freeman said. “Doner scored a beautiful power play goal on a cross ice pass from Kontny and kind of one-timed it and it was a great goal and it gave us the 1-0 lead. And Milliron played terrific, it was his best game of the season all the way through and made a lot of big saves for us and probably won the game for us.”

The Falcons defeated St. John’s University 4-0 late Tuesday night for Milliron’s second consecutive shutout for. UWRF is now 10-0.