Sentinels defeat Eskymos in hockey opener
Trending
ESCANABA -- The Escanaba Eskymos opened the 2026-27 hockey season against the Marquette Sentinels here Friday night. The Sentinels came out with a 4-1 victory.
The Sentinels got on the board first as Jameson Sandstrom found the back of the net off assists by Colton Hartz and Ty Martin with 5:23to go in the second period to put the Sentinels up 1-0.
"It's always a battle when we play Escanaba," Sentinels coach Doug Garrow said. “It’s a close rivalry but our kids enjoy competing against each other."
The Eskymos tied the game with 16:26 to go in the third period as junior Nick Martinson found the back of the net with an assist by sophomore Chase Korpi to tie the game at one.
"I think we played really well because of how young we are as a team," Martinson said. “A lot of good things happened tonight but some things we have to work on and we should be firing on all cylinders in the next few weeks."
With 8:47 to go in the third period sophomore Carson Pond scored off the assist by Sandstrom to put the Sentinels up 2-1.
"It felt really good to get that goal and get the team going," Pond said. "We know all the kids on Escanaba so to start the season off against them was really fun."
The Sentinels added a pair of late goals to make the final score look deceptive of how close this game really was.
"Our first goal was to take care of our defensive zone and block shots," Eskymos coach Andy Johnson said. "I was really happy with the net play by Mason Couch. He really played his heart out tonight and that is big for us going forward."
The Sentinels outshot the Eskymos 23 to 18 and neither team scored on the power play as Marquette was 0 for 2 and Escanaba was 0 for 1.
Escanaba will be back in action Saturday as they host Petoskey.