Home » Sports » Waupaca Sports » Penalty bug bites Waupaca

Penalty bug bites Waupaca

Comets beat Mosinee, lose to SPASH

By Greg Seubert


It was an opportunity for the Waupaca boys’ hockey team to see how it stacked up against one of the state’s top programs.

Stevens Point handed the Comets a 13-4 loss in the championship game of last year’s Community Parks Hockey Classic in Stevens Point. The same two teams matched up Jan. 5 in the championship game of this year’s tournament at the K.B. Willett Arena and the Comets came out on the short end of an 8-3 score.

Waupaca had advanced to the title game Jan. 4 with a 7-3 Great Northern Conference win over Mosinee.

SPASH 8, Waupaca 3
Ten penalties – including six in the second period alone – kept the Comets’ penalty box a crowded place.

Those 10 penalties for 32 minutes included a pair of major penalties in the second period. SPASH took advantage of the shorthanded opponent, as the Panthers increased their lead from 2-1 after one period to 7-1 heading into the third.
“I don’t even know what to say,” coach John Erspamer said. “Let’s just say there were too many against a team like that. You can’t give SPASH that many power plays. We got the penalty bug today.”

Lucca Weinkauf put the Panthers on the board two minutes into the game, but Waupaca’s Cody Rasmussen tied the game off of an assist from Mitchell Trzebiatowski.

Dayne Hoyord gave SPASH a 2-1 lead later in the period and the Panthers headed to the locker room with a 2-1 advantage.
The penalties began to take a toll on the Comets in the second period, as Jake Minch scored three power-play goals and Trey Zagrzebski and Weinkauf also found the net.

“That second period was probably the most odd period that I’ve ever coached in my coaching career,” Erspamer said. “It looked like it was one after another after another. The real killer was the check from behind and they made the appropriate call on that. That’s just the way it is. Our player made the mistake and he paid the price for it.”

The period included a pair of five-minute checking from behind major penalties.

“I don’t like to see the big-time penalties,” Erspamer said. “That’s not who we are and that’s never been who we are. That’s tough to swallow as a coach. It’s my responsibility to make sure that stuff doesn’t happen. It has to be a lesson learned. We don’t play that type of game, we never have played that type of game. It appeared that we do.”

Minch’s fourth goal gave the Panthers an 8-1 lead less than two minutes into the third period before Braeden Ryan and Jack Menzies scored for Waupaca.

SPASH outshot the Comets 39-21.

“We struggled with their speed and they were the better team,” Erspamer said. “Five-on-five, I would argue that we could play with them and give them a game, but when you’re in the penalty box that much, it’s just a matter of time. We left the second-period locker room saying, ‘Look, you’re representing more than yourselves in this room right now, you’re representing your entire community so you better step up and put the product that we’ve had all year on the ice.’

“We knew we had our hands full tonight,” he added. “You really don’t do well when you’re sitting in the penalty box and watching them skate in circles.”

SP-WP-boys-hockey1-190110 SP-WP-boys-hockey2-190110 SP-WP-boys-hockey3-190110 SP-WP-boys-hockey4-190110 SP-WP-boys-hockey5-190110 SP-WP-boys-hockey6-190110 SP-WP-boys-hockey7-190110
<
>
Waupaca's Jack Erspamer hits the ice after being tripped by Mosinee's Brodie Murray Jan. 4 during the opening round of the Community Parks Hockey Classic in Stevens Point. Greg Seubert Photo

Waupaca 7, Mosinee 3
Waupaca trailed the Indians 3-2 after two periods, but came up with five unanswered goals in the final period.

Mosinee’s Trey Fitzgerald scored the game’s only goal in the first period. Henry Batten and Rasmussen scored off of assists from Menzies in the second period to give the Comets a 2-1 lead, but Fitzgerald and Max Beste answered with goals for the Indians to give Mosinee a 3-2 lead at the second break.

Rasmussen tied the game 26 seconds into the third period off of an assist from Trzebiatowski and Jack Erspamer. Menzies’ goal off of an assist from Rasmussen and Batten gave Waupaca the lead for good before Davis Levine, Branden Koski and Erspamer added to the Comets’ lead.

“That’s a 4-3 game, Mosinee,” Erspamer said. “You have to give them a lot of credit. They outworked us, we let them have life and they took advantage of it for two full periods.”

Waupaca outshot the Indians 39-28.

“I really didn’t say a whole lot (after the second period),” Erspamer said. “You have to count on your leadership, count on guys getting mentally into the game and count on guys to say, ‘Alright, enough is enough, we need to do better because we are better.’ We talk a lot about reputation vs. identity. I told the guys, ‘You have a reputation already, what’s your identity? What you’re going to do in the third period is really going to determine a lot to what our identity is.

“Things started to go our way because we outworked them,” he said. “We fought through a pretty tough two periods to find our way in the third. I certainly hope the guys learn from that.”

The Comets improved their Great Northern record to 6-0 with the win over Mosinee, but their overall record dropped to 12-2-1 with the loss to SPASH.

Waupaca is now off until the Comets host Marshfield in a rescheduled game at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 15, at the Waupaca Ice & Expo Center.

“We’re in a mid-season funk,” Erspamer said. “We have to figure out a way to get out of that and get back to playing our game.”

 

Scroll to Top