By WJBC staff
Lincoln, NE – A strong push in the second period was enough for the Bloomington Thunder to take the win over the Lincoln Stars by the score of 5-2 at the Ice Box Saturday night. The win marks the end of the Thunder’s six-game road trip where the team was 5-0-1 improving to 18-16-7 on the season.
Opening the game were the Stars with an early power play chance and capitalizing at 2:48. Biagio Lerario picked up his 13th of the season tipping it to the back of the net.
Bloomington would not answer until the final 30 seconds when Van Barr (Western Michigan University) fired on a dropped puck by Tarek Baker (University of Minnesota), beating Cam Hackett and skating to the dressing room with a tie game.
Then Thunder blew the game open in the second period scoring four straight on the Stars. Jake Slaker continues to be the top player on the road for Bloomington with his ninth goal on the road and 11th of the season on a breakaway pass. Defenseman and Montreal Canadiens draft pick Nikolas Koberstein (Montreal Canadiens, University of Alaska-Fairbanks) picked up his third of the season on the power play at 11:49 to make it 3-1. Then Barr, also on the power play, grabbed his second of the game and tenth of the season at 16:30. Barr’s goal ended the night for Hackett with 16 saves and the loss. Peyton Jones entered the game and made seven saves in relief.
Bloomington finished the night going 2-7 on the power play and 6-7 on the penalty kill. Matt Mendelson (Penn State University) capped off the period with his tenth goal of the year and second point of the night with five seconds to play, giving the Thunder the 5-1 lead.
In the third, the Thunder played a defensive game and surrendered 12 shots on net. Hayden Lavigne (University of Michigan) stopped all but one in the period ending the game with 25 saves and his fifth straight win for Bloomington. Joe Lappin (Arizona State University) scored the final goal of the game with under six minutes left but it was too little too late for the Stars.
The Stars fall to 13-21-5 in the final spot of the Western Conference, while Bloomington is in the Eastern Conference playoff hunt with 43 points and fifth place.
