TOMAH, Wis. — The Wisconsin Woodsmen were hoping a raucous home crowd would be just
the ticket to keeping their post-season hopes alive Saturday evening.
Unfortunately, not even a little home cooking would be enough, as the Wausau Cyclones
continued their mastery of the Woodsmen, dealing Wisconsin a season-ending 5-3 setback to
win the best-of-three NA3HL Fraser Cup Playoff matchup.
The Cyclones scored the game’s first two goals — Antonio Gomez netting the only tally of the
first period, and Easton Plachetka adding the second 4:06 into the middle period — before
Wisconsin’s Nolan-James Mix found the back of the net for the 18th time this season at 6:37 to
get the Woodsmen within one, 2-1.
Wausau, however, would close the second period with back-to-back goals from Dominick
Bourdon and Matthew Mahoney to push its lead to 4-1 with 17 minutes to play.
Wisconsin sandwiched a pair of third-period goals around a solo tally by Wausau in the third
period — including Mix’s second of the night — but the Woodsmen’s frantic third-period rally
ran out of time.
Steven Kelley and Ryan Hacker shared the goaltending duties for the Woodsmen, with Kelley
stopping 16 Cyclone shots in 46:38 minutes, while Hacker stopped all three shots he faced in
relief.
With the loss, the Woodsmen close out their inaugural season with a 24-22-1-2 overall record.
