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Photo by John Wagner

Photo by John Wagner

FAIRBANKS — Mid Alaska Conference high school hockey teams continued to make a strong showing against other Class 4A opponents from throughout the state by posting a clean sweep on Thursday.

North Pole registered a stunning 4-2 victory over the four-time defending state champion South Anchorage Wolverines at the Polar Ice Center.

Meanwhile, West Valley pulled out an exciting 5-4 overtime victory over the Eagle River Wolves, and the Lathrop Malemutes registered a 6-2 triumph over the Wasilla Warriors. Both games were played at the Big Dipper Ice Arena.

Another set of challenging games is scheduled for today. Lathrop entertains South Anchorage at 3 p.m. at the Big Dipper, West Valley hosts Wasilla at 5:45 p.m. at the Patty Center and North Pole takes on Eagle River at 6:45 p.m. at the Polar Ice Center.

North Pole

Hank Parra scored the game-winning goal about 10 minutes into the third period for the Patriots and then added an empty-netter with 35 seconds remaining to wrap up the upset.

“It was a good win,” said North Pole coach Jason Storey. “The kids worked hard, we had great goaltending, great defense and a great team effort.”

The Patriots were ticketed for 24 minutes of penalties, but didn’t give up a power-play goal.

“We were perfect on the penalty kill tonight and that’s something we’ve been good at so far this season,” Storey said. “Of course, our best penalty killer is (goalie) Phoenix (Copley).”

Copley made 26 saves on the night, giving the Patriots a 4-1 record on the young season.

“It’s still a young season and we’ve got a long ways to go, but we are doing some good things thus far,” Storey said.

South Anchorage took a 1-0 lead in the first period on a goal by Kyle Shephard, but the Patriots answered with a goal by Matt Sanford off an assist from Tyler Keturi.

South went ahead in the second on Brad Schierhorn’s goal, only to see North Pole respond with a goal from Vance Bridgman off assists from Jared Linnell and DJ Carnley.

That set the stage for Parra’s game-winner that was set up by Carnley and Linnell. Parra’s empty-net goal was unassisted.

South Anchorage goalie Thomas Davis recorded 29 saves.

West Valley

Ben Henne recorded a hat trick to lead West Valley past Eagle River in a hard-fought contest.

Henne scored West Valley’s first goal, knotted the score at 4-4 with about two minutes left in regulation and netted the game-winner early in the overtime session.

“He had a great night,” said West Valley coach Wayne Sawchuk. “He was the best player on the ice tonight.”

Sean Sylvester and Tyler Bolles also scored goals for West Valley.

“I was disappointed with the way we played in our own zone tonight, but happy with what we did offensively,” Sawchuk said. “We need to tighten things up a bit in our own zone.”

Eagle River’s goal scorers were not available.

Lathrop

Taylor Munson scored two goals in the first period as the Malemutes stormed out to a 3-0 lead and never looked back in beating the Warriors.

“We still have a lot of things to fine-tune and work on,” Lathrop assistant coach Togi Letuligasenoa said. “We had a lot of good energy out there tonight and some great puck movement.

“Those are things we can build on,” he added. “We’re looking forward to our game with South.”

The Malemutes upset South Anchorage 2-0 in Anchorage last Saturday.

Brooks Poe, Alec Hajdukovich, Dominic Shuttleworth and Kyle Olson also scored goals for the Malemutes. Bryan Gundersen had two assists, while Poe, Shuttleworth, Hajdukovich, Jon Ringstad and Brandon Carlson each had one helper.

Travis Koso and Eric Marshall scored for Wasilla.

Lathrop goalie Stephon Williams stopped 18 shots, while Wasilla goalie Chris Yaskus made 34 saves.

The Malemutes take a 4-0 record into today’s game.