Gross overtime goal lifts Force to USHL Showcase win

Tyson Gross (’02/Calgary, AB) sank the overtime game winner to lift the Fargo Force to a 5-4 edge against the US National Development Program in one of three games played on the final day of the Dicks Sporting Goods USHL Fall Showcase tournament.

Other games saw the Sioux City Musketeers getting past the Muskegon Lumberjacks 5-2 and the Chicago Steel wrapping up a 2-0 start to the season with a 6-1 edge against the Sioux Falls Stampede.

Fargo Force 5 USNDP 4 (ot)

The goal by Gross gave the Force its first and only lead of the contest as Team USA carried a 3-0 lead out of the opening period and was up 4-1 halfway through the second.

Two goals in the final two minutes of the middle frame had the Force within a goal and the tying goal came early in the third.

Felikss Gavars (’02/Riga Latvia); Jacob Braccini (’01/Hanover, MN — Minnesota); Cole Knuble (’04/East Grand Rapids, MI) and Erik Bargholtz (’03/Appleton, WI) fired the goals for the Force.

Frank Nazar III (’04/Mount Clemons, MI — Michigan) scored a pair for the National Development Team with others for Marek Hejduk (’04/Parker, CO — Harvard) and Isaac Howard (’04/Hudson, WI).

Sioux City Musketeers 5 Muskegon Lumberjacks 2

Musketeers held a 2-1 edge in both the first and final periods and added an unanswered middle period marker against the Lumberjacks.

Kirklan Irey (’01/Bismarck, ND — Bemidji State) and Ben Steeves (’02/Bedford, NH — Minnesota Duluth) both scored a pair for the Musketeers, Ben Doran (’03/St. Louis, MO) firing the other and Axel Mangbo (’03/Molle, Sweden) picked up the win in goal with 27 saves.

Lumberjack goals came from Gavin McCarthy (’05/Clarence Center, NY) and Thomas Sinclair (’02/Toronto, ON — Vermont).

Chicago Steel 6 Sioux Falls Stampede 1

A pair of unanswered goals in the first and second periods had the Steel comfortably in front but Cole Miller (’02/Littleton, CO) fired the only Stampede shot of 20 to get by Nicholas Haas (’01/Williamsville, NY) in the Steel goal early in the final period.

Adam Fantilli (’04/Nobleton, ON); Jack Harvey (’03/Stacy, MN — Boston U); Sam Lipkin (’03/Lafayette Hill, PA — Quinnipiac); Lukas Gustafsson (’02/Alpharetta, GA — Boston College); Jackson Blake (’03/Eden Prairie, MN — North Dakota) and Casy Laylin (’04/St. Michael, MN) scored the Steel goals.

With the completion of these games — two each for the 16 USHL teams at the Showcase event, they head into the remaining 58 regular season games apiece beginning Oct. 1