TROJAN BOYS HOCKEY: Windom Area outlasts WHS in OT

WORTHINGTON — Zach Bartosh iced a three goal comeback for the Windom Area Eagles with his overtime winner to defeat the Worthington Trojans 6-5 Tuesday night.

“Mitch Macek winning the face off was huge,” Bartosh said. “Then Janssen grabbed it and kind of threw it toward the net. I just picked it up and put it in.”

The Trojans were able to kill the remnants of a 5 minute major penalty to begin the overtime period, but were called for roughing with 5 minutes, 23 second left to give the Eagles another shot at the game winner.

“We did an excellent job of staying out of the box in the first two periods,” Trojan coach Nate Grimmius said. “It comes down to penalties late in the game for us again and that makes this a tough one to swallow.”

On Bartosh’s game-winner, Macek won the faceoff back to Janssen, who threw the puck toward the net. Bartosh picked up the quasi-pass in front of the net and was able to deke out Trojan goalie Rylan Schultes and put the put in the back of the net.

“We’ve had a little stretch here where we have been going through the motions,” Eagles coach Jon Ammerman said. “It really helped us in the third to find a little bit of leadership and to be able to grind out a game.”

The Eagles trailed 5-2 after two periods, but picked up three unanswered goals in the third to send the game to overtime.

“We told the kids between the second and third period that the first goal was going to determine the game,” Grimmius said. “We told them we wanted to get the first one out of the gate, but unfortunately we weren’t able to do that.”

Janssen followed up Andrew Hirsch’s goal with one of his own less than 3 minutes later on the power-play with a shot that found its way through Schultes’ five-hole to pull the Eagles within one.

“Once Hirsch scored that goal right away in the third and after that we got some momentum back,” Bartosh said. “We started to think that we could do this, we’ve done it before.”

Windom Area capped off their comeback with a Devin Nielsen 6 on 4 power-play goal with 40.1 seconds left in the game after the Trojans took a 5 minute-major for checking from behind.

“We were just taking shots to get the puck to the net,” Bartosh said. “That was all we could do at that point to try and even it up.”

The Trojans were able to get on the board first with 8 minutes, 30 seconds left in the opening frame when Levi Leach fed Jacob Oberloh in front of the net for a goal. Worthington out shot Windom Area in the first 12-10 and held a 1-0 lead heading into the second period.

“We hung in there right off the bat and were able to get some good offensive pressure, we were able to cycle the puck and get some decent shots,” Grimmius said. “[The first period] was the best period we’ve played all year.”

Windom Area put two goals past Schultes early in the first to take the lead (Bartosh, Janssen), but Worthington stormed back, scoring four unanswered goals to make it 5-2.

“The first half of that second period we were a little sluggish, but then we got back to playing like we did in the first period,” Grimmius said. “We got stronger as the second period went on.”

Goals for the Trojans came from Kody Honius, Oberloh, Leach and Jacob Molden respectively.

“[Worthington] really took advantage of their opportunities and we didn’t take advantage of ours,” Bartosh said. “We were playing right with them in some parts of our game, but we just got down on ourselves once they took advantage of their opportunities.”

The Eagles (9-7, 5-3) travel to Becker/Big Lake Friday, while the Trojans (3-12, 0-9) host Waseca Saturday at 2 p.m.

WA 0 2 3 1 — 6

WHS 1 4 0 0 — 5

Daily Globe Reporter Jordan Willi

may be reached at 376-7335.

Tags: sports, trojans, windom, boys, hockey