IL West Hockey News Article - "Predators Blank Huskies 6-0"
Predators Blank Huskies 6-0
By Stephen Gordon, 10/13/25, 2:00PM CDT
The Plainfield Predators flexed their offensive muscles this past weekend. Scoring five goals in a Saturday evening win (5-1) over Lyons Township, they followed up their effort with a 6-0 win over Oak Park River Forest Sunday evening in Oak Park.
The 11-goal output by the club, now 4-1 (9-4 overall) and in sole possession of third place in the Illini West, propelled them into the spotlight of teams to watch this regular season and into the post-season.
As to the Sunday night affair with the Huskies, Plainfield would come out of the locker room ready to go from the opening face off.
They would grab a 1-0 at the 13:15 mark of the opening period when Sr. fwd. Colin Mahoney took a feed from Zach Preisler and beat starting Huskies goaltender Trevor Moen with a high wrist shot. Just over five minutes later, fwd. Elias Blanco would score the first of his two goals on the night with 8:07 remaining, making it 2-0 and the rout was on.
“In games like these, it is important for us to just keep our focus,” Preds coach Myke Bangs said. “We just need to keep competing and not play to what is on the scoreboard.”
The middle period found Plainfield finding the back of the Huskies net four times. The visitors made it 3-0 when fwd. Ryan Bitsky scored his third goal of the season off a pass from Brendan Melzacki at the 13:46 mark. Just over two minutes later Marco Mazzuca scored his first goal of the season making it 4-0 with 11:19 left to play.
“This is one of our better wins thus far this season I’d say,” Bangs said. “Oak Park is a very good team. They beat us last year and they made it to the West Cup Finals last year. So, this was a good win for us.”
The sentiment was echoed by sr. Capt. Colin Mahoney (Plainfield North) who felt the team kept their focus throughout the contest.
“We wanted to just keep pressing throughout the game,” Mahoney said. “We especially wanted to work on our breakout. We wanted to make sure our wingers were out wide to give ourselves good passing lanes and just forechecking as hard as we could.”
Plainfield would score two more power play goals to finish off the home team. Kyle Sebastian scored his fifth goal of the season on the man-advantage with 7:26 remaining off a deflection in the slot area making it 5-0. Blanco would then score his second goal of the game when he scored on the power play with 6:44 left in the second period for the 6-0 advantage.
“I think one area we have been really working on is our backchecking,” sr. Logan Huegel (1one asst.) said. “It’s a part of our game that actually hurt us last season. So, we have tried to make a conscious effort to get better at that.”
Plainfield takes on Benet Academy on Saturday night at 8 P.M. at Seven bridges Ice Area in Woodridge. They finish off the weekend Sunday night at 6 P.M. at All Seasons in Aurora as they face off against Oswego.
https://www.illinoiswesthockey.com/news_article/show/1347819