Vikings roll to shutout win over Aurora

APPLETON, Wis. — Lawrence University put together a dominating performance on Friday night en route to a 7-0 Northern Collegiate Hockey Association victory over Aurora University at the Appleton Family Ice Center.

Playing in front of a near-capacity crowd for the Body Check Cancer Game, the Vikings (5-8-1, 4-4-1 NCHA) got two goals apiece from Renato Engler, Josh Koepplinger and Felix Henriksson. Mattias Soderqvist stopped 27 shots to earn his second shutout in the last three games.

The Vikings went 3-for-5 on the power play and fired 55 shots on goal.

Henriksson scored his first career goal midway through the first period off an assist from Ryan Eardley and the Vikings led 1-0 at the 10:34 mark. Renato Engler made it 2-0 with just 58 seconds left in the first when he passed the puck to himself off the boards and beat Aurora goaltender Jared Rutledge.

Koepplinger made it 3-0 just 2:40 into the second period with assists from Sean Reynolds and Ryan Robertson.

The score stayed that way until the Vikings scored three consecutive power-play goals in the third. Koepplinger scored on the man-advantage at 7:46 of the third with assists coming again from Robertson and Reynolds. Engler then scored on the power play just 1:13 later with Nick Felan and Brandon Boelter picking up assists. Lane King fired in another power-play goal at 11:39 with Felan and Boelter assisting again.

That was the end of the night for Rutledge, who finished with 44 saves for the Spartans (1-12-1, 1-7-1).

The Vikings finished the scoring on Henriksson’s second goal of the night at the 15:13 mark.

The teams wrap up the series on Saturday afternoon.

Box score