THUNDER BAY, Ont. – Keighan Gerrie scored four times and added an assist to help lead the Thunder Bay North Stars to their 11th consecutive victory, an 8-4 triumph over the Thief River Falls Norskies Friday, in Superior International Junior Hockey League play at the Fort William Gardens.
Thunder Bay set the tone in this one by striking three times in the opening 20 minutes on tallies by Ryan Mignault and a pair by Gerrie who reached the 20-goal plateau on the season.
Blake Nelson put Thief River Falls on the board with a man advantage marker 7:40 into the middle stanza only to see Jacob Brown answer that for the North Stars at 11:40.
Battling back, Boe Bjorge connected twice late in the frame to make it a 4-3 game after two periods of play as he ran a point streak to 14 straight outings.
Gerrie then hit his fourth hat trick of season early in the third to put Thunder Bay back up by a pair.
After Alec Daman’s 18th brought the visitors closer, the North Stars put the game away with three unanswered markers in the back half of the stanza to round out the night’s scoring.
Picking up those goals were Josh Bryant on the power play, along with Gerrie into an empty net for his fourth and Ben Erwin with 40 seconds left.
Kyle Auger had three assists in the triumph as he now has at least one point in all 21 games he has played during the campaign.
Dougie Newhouse made 34 saves to record the win for 21-1-1-0 Thunder Bay while Bailey Schmitz handled 36 of 43 for 13-9-3-1 Thief River Falls.
The same two teams meet again Saturday back at the Gardens at 7:30 p.m.
Photo credit: Leith Dunick, tbnewswatch.com