Cameron Whitehead stopped all 28 shots that he faced and the Lincoln Stars defeated the Fargo Force, 3-0, on Saturday night at Scheels Arena.

Friday's win was Lincoln's (37-19-3-1) fourth consecutive and they won the season series against Fargo (38-14-4-4), 5-3, as the Force were shut out for just the fourth time this season. The Stars improved to 12-2-0-1 since March 3, an incredible rebound after a 5-4-2 February. Two losses in that month were a pair of one-goal defeats at Fargo Feb. 17-18.

"It was really important for us to come into this building and prove that we can win here," head coach Rocky Russo said. "I thought that we played well enough to win the last time that we were here but just didn't get the results that we wanted. They're obviously going to win the West in the regular season and have that home ice until the finals, so we wanted to leave that mark in their brain that if we play them at any point that we can win in this building.

Whitehead earned his second shutout against the Force and his fifth of the season to earn his 25th win of the season. He moves into a tie with Jacob Fowler of Youngstown for the most shutouts in the USHL and also into a tie for the second-most shutouts in a single season in Stars' history. Whitehead now has the same amount as Kevin Murdock and Wayne Russell had in the 2010-11 and 1999-00 seasons, respectively.

"It's cool but it's a team thing," Whitehead said. "A goalie can't get a shutout on his own. The guys played great in front of me all weekend and I'm just fortunate. I think there was a stretch in the second period where I was pretty busy but other than that I feel like I was seeing everything pretty clearly. There wasn't a lot of traffic in front of me, the rebounds were good and they were blocking pucks for me."

German Yavash got things started for the Stars by scoring at the 4:17 mark of the first period for his 10th of the season and fifth with the Stars. Klavs Veinbergs won the faceoff back to Tyler Dunbar, who looked into the left circle and found Yavash. The former Force forward fired a wrist shot to the top-left side to beat netminder and former teammate Matej Marinov.

"When we were looking to make that trade," Russo said, "part of what I knew about German was his ability to shoot the puck. I think he is going to be a 20-25 goal scorer in this league next year. That's how talented I think that he is. Getting his feet underneath him and playing a consistent game he's going to get a lot of chances to score. Man, he can absolutely let it go."

Cole Crusberg-Roseen cashed in on the power play at the 4:53 of the second with a rocket from straightaway at the blue line. Keaton Peters won the faceoff to the right point side to Jared Mangan, who perfectly tee'd Crusberg-Roseen for his sixth goal of the season and third power-play tally.

Brennan Ali added an empty-net goal at the 18:34 mark to pick up his 22nd point (6+16) in the last 25 games and score his 13th goal overall.

Lincoln guarantees it will finish no lower than third in the Western Conference but remain a point back of Waterloo after their 4-1 win over Sioux City. The Stars wrap up the regular season next weekend with a home-and-home set against the Tri-City Storm. The home finale is Friday at 7:05 p.m. and tickets can be purchased  here .
 

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