Best of the Midwest
The top three teams in the Midwest Jr. Hockey League — Detroit Fighting Irish, MC Monarchs and Traverse City Hounds — all skated victory laps on Saturday.
MC MONARCHS 7, MICHIGAN ICE DOGS 2
MWJHL scoring leader Adam Jonak tallied three goals and added two assists to lift visiting MC to a 7-2 win over Michigan.
Jonak now has 33 goals, 45 assists, 78 points in 25 games.
Anthony (Wojo) Wojciechowski, Colton James, Alex Anderson and Jarrad Vroman all scored single goals for the Monarchs, who now have a record of 17-8 on the season.
TRAVERSE CITY HOUNDS 9, SOO FIREHAWKS 2
Travis Kirk netted the hat trick and the home team coasted to an easy victory.
Cam Givens added two goals for TC while Jacob Gillis had five assists and Austin Flores had four helpers.
Clayton Dowlan, Kevin Cole, Andrew Dzierwa and Grant McCormack potted solo goals for the Hounds, who boosted their record to 15-0-1 with the win.
Zach Eitrem and Nick Gordon scored for the Firehawks.
Game 2 of the weekend set is today at 1 p.m. in Traverse City.
DETROIT FIGHTING IRISH 7, DECATUR BLAZE 6
Richie Pinkowski scored at 3:45 of overtime to give visiting Detroit the dramatic victory.
Ken Winter scored four goals — three of which were shorthanded — and added an assist for the Irish.
Chuck Hicks and Eric Long also scored for Detroit, which improved its record to 16-6-3 with the win.
PHOTO: Richie Pinkowski scored the OT winner for Detroit on Saturday.
Little Richie rocks!!