Photo by Jake McNeill: Marshall forward Owen Renslow celebrates after scoring the go-ahead goal during the second period of a boys hockey game against Litchfield/Dassel-Cokato at Red Baron Arena in Marshall on Thursday night. Renslow scored two goals on the night as the Tigers came from behind to pick up a home win over the Dragons. 

MARSHALL — In a physical back-and-forth battle, the Marshall boys hockey team pulled out a win in its game against Litchfield/Dassel-Cokato in Red Baron Arena on Thursday night. The Tigers overcame an early deficit with three unanswered goals in the second period to come away with a 4-3 victory.

Renslow gave the Tigers the go-ahead goal six minutes into the second period. The Dragons had just killed off a brief 5-on-3 but were far from out of the woods; Owen Renslow took the puck from Marshall territory all the way up to the net before pulling back and sliding it down low glove-side to make the score 2-1 in favor of Marshall on the power-play goal.

Still not done, Renslow gave Marshall an extra bit of insurance just two minutes later when he lasered one in off the feed from Tyler Welsh. The assist was Welsh’s second of the game, as well as Luke Ehlers’ first after he had gotten a bad bounce off the crossbar to finish just shy of a goal earlier in the same trip down the ice.

The second goal was Renslow’s fourth of the season and brought him up to a team-leading 10 points on the year.

“I think when we get out in front, we play better,” Renslow said. “Our boys were playing hard hockey, busting every puck and just moving our feet. Chances came out of it and we buried some of them on the power play. We’ve just got to work hard every period.”

Litchfield/Dassel-Cokato led 1-0 after the first period but it took Marshall just two minutes into the second to go ahead. The Dragons were called for a tripping minor with 33 seconds to play in the first and Jacob Johnson made L/DC pay early in the second, following up on Tyler Welsh’s shot to tip in the rebound for the tying score.

Penalties came early and often in the first period, with L/DC getting charged with five penalties for 10 minutes and Marshall with three penalties for six minutes. Marshall held the advantage in terms of time on the power play but it was Litchfield/Dassel-Cokato that capitalized first, with Kasey Melquist scoring off an assist from Anton Haataja for a go-ahead power-play goal just over five minutes into the game.

The goal came on Litchfield/Dassel-Cokato’s fourth shot of the game. From there, goaltender McCoy Guenther shut down the Dragons, saving 17 of the next 18 shots he faced to keep L/DC off the board. He finished the game with 23 saves on 26 shots faced.

Over the course of the game, the two teams combined for 14 penalties for 28 minutes. While play got chippy at times, the two teams settled down in the third period, in which only one penalty was called.

“I thought we responded well [to the physicality],” Marshall assistant coach Daniel Schipper said. “They worked hard, we didn’t get in the mix too much, but they [Litchfield] play physical and overall I thought we did a good job handling it. We continued to work hard, keep our hands down and just try to play the right way, so I thought the response was good from the team.”

Haataja kept the Dragons competitive when he answered Renslow’s second goal with one of his own, but Johnson found the back of the net in the same minute to make the score 4-2 in favor of Marshall with six-and-a-half minutes left in the second. The goal was Johnson’s fourth of the season, a team-high.

Haatja breathed some life into the Dragons with 10 minutes left in regulation, shooting a puck from the low faceoff circle into the top-shelf glove side to bring the Dragons within one goal on his third point of the game. Yet, that was as close as the Dragons came. Carson Brummond was credited with an assist on the goal.

The Dragons continued to work the puck in close in the final minutes, but Marshall was consistently able to create traffic in front of the net and get bodies in the way of shots. At one point, Ehlers reached out and nearly grabbed a shot mid-air to block it with his glove, shaking off his hand as he skated over to the bench after wrapping up his shift.

“[L/DC was] definitely working hard in the third to get one by Guenther, but overall maybe we went to a little bit of a show, trying to play with the lead instead of continuing to play,” Schipper said. “Maybe changed the game a little bit when we didn’t want to, but overall the effort was there and that’s what matters.”

Marshall (3-4) will go on the road this weekend for a Saturday matchup against Waseca (3-0-1). Puck drop for the game is scheduled for noon. The Bluejays have defeated Marshall in each of the team’s last three head-to-head matchups, outsourcing Marshall by an aggregate margin of 16-11 in a series of high-scoring games.