Junior Dylan Belak’s hat trick fueled a 5-4 comeback win over Franklin Regional for the ice hockey team on Monday night.

Franklin Regional scored four unanswered goals to take a 4-1 lead in the second period, but the Highlanders battled back, with junior Keith Reed scoring the winning goal with two minutes left in the game. Junior Robbie Aranos also scored for Baldwin.

“It was tough in the first period. They came out a lot harder than we expected,” senior Tanner Cindrich said. 

Senior James Dulya agreed.

“We were playing with really low energy until we finally got a goal at the end of the second period,” Dulya said. 

In the locker room after the second period, the coaches provided the motivation, and the players agreed that they needed to do better. 

“We fully believed that we could come back and win the game,” Cindrich said. 

Belak said the whole team pulled together.

“We all wanted to win after the locker room. The bench was highly motivated, which kept the energy up,” Belak said.

The team faced new challenges during the game last night, but was able to overcome them.

“Every goal in the game mattered. We need to come out more focused and play as well as we did during the third period throughout the entirety of the game,” Cindrich said. 

The Highlanders are now 10-0 on the season. The team’s next game is against Moon on Thursday.