The Lincoln Stars won their first shootout of the season with a 3-2 win over the Tri-City Storm on Saturday night at the Ice Box.
Antonio Fernandez scored in the fourth round for the only goal of the shootout and Cameron Whitehead stopped 39 shots to pick up his sixth consecutive victory.
Lincoln (20-9-1) remains undefeated in 2023 and earned its fourth consecutive win to match a season-high previously accomplished twice. They move to 6-3-1 against Tri-City (14-13-0-3), whom they will not see again until March 29.
"Complete effort top-to-bottom," head coach Rocky Russo said. "Every guy selling out, every guy competing. Obviously there was some adversity. We are really turning the corner from a culture standpoint. They believe in themselves and they never fell out of that game and it showed."
Whitehead denied each of the first four shots against him and each of the Stars' first three shooters also came up empty in the shootout. Fernandez weaved in from the boards to the slot and wristed the puck in to send the entire Stars bench out to celebrate with him.
"I do this move in practices," Fernandez said," and (Massie) and (Whitehead) are too good and know what it is, so I knew if it was up against a new goalie that it was going to go in and I was confident that it would go in."
The Stars never led until the shootout winner. Tri-City got on the board first on a Charlie Kinsman wrist shot from the top of the right circle at the 17:19 mark of the opening frame for his first USHL goal. Lincoln answered when Cole Crusberg-Roseen fired a shot from atop the right-wing circle past netminder Nicklas Erickson for his third goal of the season.
Sebastian Tornqvist gave the Storm the lead at the 8:14 mark of the third with a one-timer from just inside he blue line on the power play. The Stars again answered when Mason Marcellus crashed the net and poked a loose puck in 1:29 later for his ninth goal of the season and his 10th point (2+8) in the last six games.
Lincoln remains in second in the Western Conference after Fargo also swept the weekend. The Stars will look to stretch their win streak to a season-high five games when they host the defending Clark Cup Champions on Friday night at 7:05 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at lincolnstars.com.
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