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Wisconsin-Superior
Yellowjackets
Dayn Belfour
Yellowjacket Athletics

Men's Hockey

Blugolds blank Yellowjackets in season finale

Dayn Belfour had 22 saves against Eau Claire on Saturday night.
Box Score

Eau Claire 3, Yellowjackets 0

The Yellowjacket men's hockey team entered Saturday's game with UW-Eau Claire knowing that, win or lose, their season was going to come to a conclusion. Their hope was that they would, with a victory, knock the Blugolds out of contention for the national tournament and end the season of a third team in the WIAC.

Eau Claire had other ideas.

The Yellowjackets had more than their fair share of chances in the game but couldn't solve Blugold goaltender Jay Deo. Meanwhile the Blugolds took advantage of early mistakes to build an early lead and go on to a 3-0 win at the Hobbs Ice Center in Eau Claire.

With the win the Blugolds are the 2013-14 WIAC champions, but due to the upsets around the Division III world on Saturday, they may have also had their season come to a conclusion.

From the opening faceoff the Yellowjackets put pucks on goal, but each time Deo was up to the task. As the period wore on the Blugolds slowly mounted an attack and broke through at 8:35 of the first. Following a turnover down low the Blugolds held the Yellowjacket zone and the puck ended up behind the net where Niko Kapetanovic centered to Patrick Moore, who tipped a shot past Dayn Belfour (Morden, Manitoba/Morden Collegiate) to make it 1-0.

Just a few minutes later it went to 2-0 when the Blugolds converted an odd-man rush. Moore had the puck in the left circle and centered to Ross Andersen driving the net, and he slipped the puck past Belfour for his tenth of the year at 12:32.

The Yellowjackets had a chance to cut into the lead when the Blugolds took penalties eight seconds apart. They moved the puck well on the power play and did ring one off the crossbar, but that was as close as they would come and the Blugolds killed it off.

In the second period Eau Claire closed out the scoring at 8:41 when Joe Krause made a strong move off the goal line to the right of Belfour and slid a shot between the legs of the Yellowjacket goaltender to stretch the lead to 3-0.

That was more than enough for Deo, who entered the game with a 0.78 goals against average and a .966 save percentage. Every time the Yellowjackets put one on goal, he was there and preserved the shutout. He finished with 43 saves. At the other end Belfour made 22 stops. His record drops to 7-7-1 on the season.

It was a penalty-filled contest as the teams combined for 19 penalties. The Yellowjackets took nine penalties for 18 minutes while the Blugolds had 10 for 20 minutes. With the high number of penalties the power plays were remarkably low. The Yellowjackets were 0-for-3, while Eau Claire was scoreless in two chances.

It was the final for nine Yellowjacket seniors - Drew Strandberg (Thunder Bay, Ontario/Westgate CV&I), Jeff Forsythe (Campbell River, British Columbia/Timberline Secondary), Pat Dalbec (Superior, Wis./Superior Senior), Joey Massingham (Duncan, British Columbia/Cowichan Secondary), Marc Fortin (Pottageville, Ontario/King City Secondary), Michael Rey (Winnipeg, Manitoba/Garden City Collegiate), Derek Stauber (Duluth, Minn./Marshall School), Brad Phenow (Sauk Rapids, Minn./Sauk Rapids-Rice), and Andy Singerhouse (Hudson, Wis./Hill-Murray).

The Yellowjackets close the season with a record of 11-15-3.
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