Avalanche Co-op Hockey Had Busy Week

The Monroe Co-op Avalanche hockey team played at home on January 12th against the Sauk Prairie Eagles. Tyler Johnson scored the team’s only goal in the first period, with an assist from Jared Cline. The Eagles were up at the end of the first, 6-1. Tyler Johnson and Cade Martin both scored in the second period. At the end of the second, the score was Sauk Prairie 9, Monroe 3. The Avalanche scored the only goal in the third, Tyler Johnson assisted by Cade Martin.
The final score of the game was Sauk Prairie 9, Monroe 4.
Coach Josh Smith commented, “We started the game off playing slow and it put us in a pretty deep hole. The upside is that we won the third period, and Tyler Johnson got a hat trick. Our major issue really comes down to being mentally prepared to play a full game and be ready at the start of the game. Until then we’re going to continue to have a hard go of it. Now we look forward to our home tournament this weekend.”
Friday night, January 15th, Monroe played Milton. Tyler Johnson, assisted by Cade Martin, scored in the first period, which tied it up at 1-1 at the end of the first. Milton outscored them 4-2 in the second period. Tyler Johnson, assisted by Cade Martin, scored both those goals. Monroe was held scoreless in the third, and lost the match, 7-3. “Tonight we played well the first period, but just ended up running out of gas in what was a pretty physical game,” commented Smith.
In the match against Grafton at SLICE on Saturday, January 16th, the visitors were up 5-0 until Dennis Neary, assisted by Tyler Johnson, scored in the second period. Monroe outscored Grafton in the third, with one goal coming from Tyler Johnson and one from Joe Wyss assisted by Colby Smith, but Grafton won 11-3.
“To start, Grafton played well today. We were missing one of our starters, who was at a college interview and two of our other starters were sitting for the first period for other reasons. Our goalie didn’t play very well, but starting in the second period we started coming together as a team and we played very well the third period.  My assistant coach and I are calling it a strategic moral loss,” said Coach Smith.
The game that was scheduled against La Follette was called after the rink’s Zamboni started smoking and broke down, leaking antifreeze all over the ice. Smith commented, “We were playing very well for the one period of play that we had and Danny, our goalie, was playing very well and it was looking to be a very good game. We are looking to reschedule at a later date and already were scheduled to play each other in Madison on Thursday, and looking forward to the rematch.” 
Monroe is 0-5 overall in the Badger South, and played Madison Edgewood at LaBahn Arena on January 19th, and will go up against Madison La Follette/East at Mandt Hockey Arena in Stoughton on January 21st, and will host Monona Grove at SLICE on January 23rd.