Barczewski shutout leads Janesville to commanding series lead

Jacob Barczewski stopped all 23 shots he faced to lead Janesville to a 5-0 win in its game at Janesville Ice Arena and a commanding 2-0 lead in its Best of Five North American Hockey League Midwest Division Final series against the Fairbanks Ice Dogs.

In other action involving Midwest based teams, the Minnesota Wilderness got a third period goal from Jesse Farabee to pull out a 3-2 win at the Northwood Credit Union Arena at Cloquet, MN to even its Central Division Final series against the visiting Aberdeen Wings at 1-1.

Ice Dogs 0 at Jets 5

Kip Hoffman paced the Jets’ offensive attack scoring once in each period, including the game opener at the 12:54 mark of the first. Cole Paskus notched another one later in the first period and Keegan Miller fired the other Jets’ goal just past the halfway mark of the second to open a 4-0 cushion.

Erik Gordon started for the Jets, coming out after the Miller goal in the second. He stopped 15 of 19 shots before making way for Josh Benson who stopped all the 11 shots he faced, the final goal from Hoffman into an empty cage with just under three minutes to go.

The Jets will carry the 2-0 lead into the middle matches to be played in Fairbanks, starting on Friday May 5

Wings 2 at Wilderness 3

The Wilderness carried a 2-0 lead out of the first period with Zach Mills and Charlie Parker providing the goals.

Riley Murphy cut the lead in half with the only goal of the second period and Colin Raver completed the Wings’ comeback 4:15 into the third. But Farabee notched the goal that stood up as the game winner a little under three minutes later and Trevor Micucci turned aside 40 in goal for the Wilderness to collect the win in goal.

Forbes Ploszaj stopped 26 shots in goal for the Wings.

This series will shift to the Odde Ice Center in Aberdeen for the next two games, beginning Friday (May 5).