Photo by Emily Daniels Members of the Marshall boys hockey team celebrate a goal during their game against Fairmont on Thursday. The Tigers won 8-1.

MARSHALL – Despite the colder temperatures outside the Marshall boys hockey team brought the heat on the ice Thursday night as they took on the Fairmont Cardinals at the Red Baron Arena and Expo. The Tigers paced the night with their aggressive defense and steady offense, ultimately beating the Cardinals 8-1.

With the Tigers on a seven-game winning streak junior Mason Plante sees a lot of positive things from his team right now and hopes that they can continue to win games.

“We’re doing a really good job of keeping up to pace with the teams we know we should be beating,” said Plante. “We have a good thing rolling for us right now and we have to keep that up. Our leadership is great from the whole team especially on the defensive end we’ve really stepped up because of all of the guys we lost last year.”

Plante has been a big asset to the team this season and he continued to prove that to be true as he started off the first period with an unassisted goal to put the Tigers on the board with a 1-0 lead just three minutes into the period. The offensive side for Marshall didn’t show signs of stopping with an unassisted goal from Chase VanDeVere to extend the Tigers lead to 2-0 with 3:24 left to play. Marshall’s defense held its own as well, as the Tigers goalie Ryley Serreyn kept the Cardinals to one shot in the first period.

The Tigers started the second period off fast and efficient as they got another goal from Plante on the assist from Noah Versaevel and Travis Radke just 20 seconds in. Plante’s second goal would grow the Tigers lead to 3-0 and Marshall continued to hold its own on both ends of the rink and would find themselves with another point on the board from sophomore Bryson Whyte, giving the Tigers a commanding 4-0 lead.

With the Tigers holding the lead for the majority of the game, they didn’t let that get into their heads and continued to play strong and together. Chase VanDeVere came across his second and final goal of the night on the assist from Trey Weber and was immediately followed by another Tiger goal from Elliot Holland on the assist from Jarod Antony and Blake Kruse. The back-to-back Marshall goals extended its lead even more to 6-0 with 4:59 left to play in the second. The rest of the period continued to favor the Tigers on offense but they couldn’t find another opportunity to put one in the net before the end of the period.

Plante would find his way to another unassisted goal and capped off his hat trick just seven seconds into the third period, setting the pace for the Tigers for remainder of the game. The weak defense that was seen from the Cardinals gave Marshall more opportunities to keep the puck on their offensive side but the Tigers didn’t see another goal until there was one minute remaining from Antony on the assist from Cole Remme and Blake Kruse.

Antony’s goal wrapped up the scoring for the Tigers but it was just the start of the Cardinals scoring. Fairmont found the net with 24 seconds left in the game, putting them on the board, but they fell to the Tigers 8-1.

The Tigers finished the night with 50 shots on goal and Serreyn had a total of seven saves.

Going forward into the season and quickly approaching the section tournaments, Marshall coach Michael Weiss wants to see the boys continue to work hard and not lose the good thing they have going right now and continue to work after the goals they set.

“We set goals every year and as we look back at them we check in on them, I think right now we’re exactly where we want to be but most of our goals come up at the end of the season where we want to be playing well come section playoff time,” said Weiss. “We just have to keep working hard and we have a lot of tough games coming up down the stretch that we need to be sharp for and if we want to be ready for playoffs we have to keep building until that time.”

The Tigers will be on the road for their next game against Redwood Valley on Tuesday.