It’s not every weekend that a Ranger team gets to take a road trip, but when it does, it will make the very best of it.

FHC hockey got a chance to travel over to the east side of the state to face off against three different opponents: Walled Lake Western, Fenton/Linden, and Bay City. This was a weekend where the boys would be able to showcase their talent and get to spend some better time together off the ice.

All weekend, the games remained tough, including a hard-fought opening match. In the opener against WLW, the Rangers kept it very close throughout period one, but Western was able to net its first goal of the night. Walled Lake would not give that 1-0 lead up and extended that lead into a 4-1 victory.

After the loss, the boys bounced back with a huge offensive game versus Fenton/Linden. Freshman Rocco Gonzalez opened up the scoring in the first period while junior Sammy Mielock netted the 2nd goal of the first, giving the Rangers a 2-0 advantage.

In the second period, Mielock would earn a hat trick and get an assist to senior Lucas Jeffreys for his first goal of the night. In the third period, Mielock earned his fourth, and senior Josh Smith earned his first of the night to help the Rangers clinch the 8-0 victory after sophomore Peter Nemmers’s strong performance in the net.

This was a great bounce-back win for the Rangers and something that the team has been able to accomplish together. Head coach Bill McSween has been very impressed with the team’s grit-and-grind attitude.

“The number one thing we should take out of this weekend is how the team handled adversity,” spoke coach McSween. “We dug our heels in and battled the last two games.  When we do that, we are tough to beat.”

Moving onto Bay City, FHC would enter the third period with a 2-0 deficit. Then, the spark plugs came flying as Jeffreys tied the game with 1:50 left in the game. With this being a showcase, there is no overtime and just shootouts. Thanks to huge stops by junior goalie Justin Baehr and goals by juniors Topher Beckering and Mielock, Jeffreys was able to hit the game-winner and bandaged up the wounds from the earlier debt.

“Coming from 2 goals down in the 3rd means our boys were confident in each other,” coach McSween said. “It takes confidence to do that.  A special shout-out to Topher for getting his first goal to get us going.”

The boys come out of this weekend evening out their record to 9-9. With one last month of regular season play coming up, these wins gave the boys a needed momentum boost.

“It’s huge, especially after coming back from behind in that game to tie it up. Winning it in a shootout is huge,” Justin Baehr said. “It’s a different atmosphere, and it should hopefully bring us a ton of momentum moving forward. We must keep building on for this weekend’s showcase in Trenton.”