Lakes Area United grinds out a 3-1 victory over Troy United

>> Lakes Area United disposed of a gritty Troy United team 3-1 in the opening round of the state hockey playoffs Tuesday night.

After a scoreless first period, Lakes Area scored twice in the second period to open up a two-goal lead. Nick Falkowski opened the scoring with 10:50 still to play in the second period when he tipped in Luke LaLone’s point blast. Gavin Grondin made it 2-0 Lakes Area with 1:24 remaining in the second period when he jammed in a loose puck in front of the net.

But this time, Troy United had an immediate response, winning the ensuing faceoff and center ice, racing down ice and scoring on an odd man rush that was finished off by Joey Clark to make it 2-1 heading into the final period.

But Troy United just couldn’t sustain much offense in the third period — or much of the night really. And Lakes Area got some breathing room with a late power play goal by Kyle Kerr.

Troy United nearly got one back in the final minute off a deflection, but Lakes Area goalie Jakob Van Zweden made an alert save to put to rest any last hopes for Troy United.

Overall, Lakes Area dominated play and outshot Troy United 37-18. But they failed to create many quality scoring chances, and Troy United consistently won battled in front of their own net for the rebounds, though Lakes Area did manage to bang in a couple. But those were rare exceptions on a night where the Troy United defense largely owned the area in front of goalie Nathan Holmes, who turned in a solid performance with 34 saves on the night.

“It’s good to see the players respond to the coaching style where it’s kind of a new coach, and new players coming into the league. I’ve got to teach them to win between the dots, and that’s what we tried to work on all season. So hopefully they keep working on it,” Troy United head coach Jsoh Brown said.

Troy United was playing a defend and counter game, and especially early on, they were able to create a handful of good chances off the rush. But Lakes Area would eventually makes some changes and their defense was able to recover better as the game wore on, limiting Troy United’s offensive chances.

“We tightened the ship a little bit,” Lakes Area head coach John McMahon said. “We knew what they were doing. We knew what we were doing wrong, and we did what we could to adjust to it.”

Lakes Area also went three-for-three on the penalty kill, though Troy United had four shots, including a couple of good chances on their first power play.

With the win, Lakes Area improves to 14-10-2 and moves on to face the host M1 Unified Griffins on Thursday in the regional semifinals.

“Today was not our best effort. If you look back at our season, you can see that. Troy United came out and played hard. Their goalie played good. They got a lot of good opportunities on our goalie. We got lucky to come out with a win tonight,” McMahon said. “If we play a good game, we can hang with them (M1) and we can beat them. If we play like we did tonight, it’s going to be a struggle for us. We’ll see what team shows up for our team on Thursday,” he added.

Troy United finishes the year 6-19-1 after last year’s winless campaign.

“It’s way better (than last year), and I’m so glad these guys are sticking with it and sticking to the plan,” Brown said.