MENOMONIE, Wis. – The Northland College Men's Hockey team was defeated 4-2 in its first Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference game by the University of Wisconsin-Stout in Menomonie, Wis., Friday night.
 
Senior Dakota Meyer was tested early seeing his first shot 14 seconds in. The Jacks were down man four minutes in but killed the penalty with Meyer making four more saves. Soon after, Northland was on the power play. Logan Gallagher with the man advantage scored for NC with Evan Ilkos assisting on the goal to open the scoring up. The Blue Devil knotted the game up at one near the end of the period.
 
UW-Stout continued to put the pressure on Northland and expanded their lead to two. The Jacks had four shots on target coming from Nik Johnson, Trey Taylor, Valerii Kneib, and Andronique Stepanian, but could not make up ground.
 
The Blue Devils scored another goal early in the third on the power play. The Jacks continued to put pressure on the UWS goalie but held out until another Northland power-play goal, this time coming from Joe Weber assisted by Ben Stewart and Brock Hart. The goal came with 3:12 left on the clock. Northland was on the power-play less than a minute after the goal, but couldn't cut into the lead again and fell 4-2.
 
Gallagher scored his third goal of the season with Weber scoring his first collegiate goal. Hart, Stewart, and Ilkos all earned points in the contest from assists. The LumberJacks tallied 11 shots on target, all coming from different student-athletes. Sam Holy paced the team in blocks with three. Meyer made 48 saves in the loss.
 
The Jacks return to the Bay Area Civic Center for a 7 p.m., game tomorrow (Saturday) against No. 13 University of Wisconsin-River Falls.
 
Northland College is an NCAA Division III institution located in Ashland, WI. The LumberJacks and LumberJills sponsor 14 varsity sports and compete in the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference, Midwest Lacrosse Conference, and the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.