HOLMEN — If there was one rule that the West Salem/Bangor ASL floor hockey team needed to follow on Tuesday, it was to keep the puck away from Holmen senior Carter Van Lin.
But that is easier said than done, and the Vikings were on the attack with the MVC tournament championship on the line.
Van Lin scored four goals with at least one in each period as Holmen beat West Salem/Bangor 6-1 at the Bernie L. Ferry Fieldhouse for its first tournament title since the 2014-15 season.
“This is incredible because of all the hard work they have put in,” Holmen coach Nick Slusser said. “The ASL values are about sportsmanship, teamwork, dedication, resilience.
“Those weren’t just words for them this season. They demonstrated those things on the court, in practice, in school, and it all paid off for them.”
The Vikings scored once in the first period and twice in the second. They scored the first five goals before senior Lexi Randall got West Salem/Bangor on the board when she scored a goal with 6 minutes, 57 seconds remaining.
It was one of the few real scoring chances the Panthers had against the Vikings, who did a good job of keeping the puck in their attack zone for the majority of the game.
Sophomore Levi Wulf played the first two periods in goal for West Salem/Bangor before moving out on the court as an offensive weapon for the third. He did get a couple of shots on Holmen’s Gabe Schams, but Schams was up to the challenge with every shot but Randall’s.
Eighth-graders Braylon Todd and Eli Greil both had good shots at Schams, but he stopped them. Two were hard enough for his stick saves to send the puck out to the boundary.
Holmen kept feeding Van Lin when possible. Junior Kian Carlisle had a good night of centering the puck for scoring opportunities, and he assisted on Van Lin’s first goal with 13:36 left in the first period.
The attack, Slusser said, was discussed as something that needed to happen for the Vikings to be successful.
“West Salem is phenomenal, and a few games into the season, I could see this was where it was going to end up,” he said. “Nothing is guaranteed against them, and they have phenomenal players and incredible coaches, but we had a team that knew what it was up against.
“(Holmen players) talked to each other, listened to coaches and worked well together.”
Eighth-grader Emma Field did a solid job of defending in front of the goal for West Salem/Bangor early in the game and made Van Lin work harder for his chances to score, but he scored with 14:40 left in the second and again with 2:20 left in the second.
The Vikings did come close on another goal in the second, but Field deflected the puck in the air, and Wulf caught it with his glove.
Senior Jett Lewis and Van Lin scored about a minute apart in the third to push Holmen’s lead to 5-0, and Randall forced Shams to make a tough save before netting her goal.
Sophomore Kai Rice scored the final goal for the Vikings, who completed an undefeated championship season.
“Their biggest growth came in the way we pushed them as a family,” Slusser said. “They all started to become friends and hang out together and started to do things outside of school together.
“Then, on the court, they knew more about each other, and that allowed them to jell much better.”
