Traverse City and Alpena do the splits

The in-state rivalry between the Traverse City North Stars and Alpena IceDiggers continued this past weekend as the two teams split their two-game set. Each team won on their home ice with the North Stars winning Friday night and Alpena getting the duke Saturday.

Friday night at Centre ICE, Josh Sorenson (pictured) scored twice to lead Traverse City to a 4-2 win. Travis Paeth opened the scoring and Matthew Larke’s power-play score with 5:06 remaining in the contest salted away the victory for the North Stars, who claimed a sixth straight conquest at home.

“We worked harder tonight and had the better forecheck,” said Jonathan Juliano, who celebrated his 19th birthday in style with an assist on Larke’s clincher. “Coach (Scott Gardiner) told us to stop playing at their level and try to rise above some of the penalties and stuff, and to get back to the level we had been playing at.”

Jeremy Kaleniecki stopped 23 IceDiggers shots for Traverse City while Johnny Morrow saved 25 for the IceDiggers.

Justin Stadler scored both goals for Alpena.

Saturday night, Alpena linemates Chris Lanciano and Anthony McIntyre helped keep Traverse City winless at Northern Lights Arena with a pair of goals each as the IceDiggers dealt the North Stars a 5-2 loss.

Stadler added Alpena's other goal.

"We've been talking about how important it is to get pucks on net," Alpena assistant coach Kelly Miller said. "Tonight we were rewarded for our efforts."

Miller also was happy to see Lanciano rewarded.

"Chris is solid defensively," Miller noted. "We might expect to get two goals from him for the entire season, but two in one night shows how he carried his effort into the offensive zone and gave us a big lift."

Steven Oleksy and Jake Erway scored for the North Stars, who got a 36-save outing from Kaleniecki.

Phil Greer made 25 saves for the win in the Alpena net.

The North Stars will take a six-game home winning streak into this weekend’s two-game series with Texarkana at Centre ICE. The Bandits come into the contest at 12-4-1 after splitting a home-and-home set with defending NAHL champion Texas. Both the Friday and Saturday contests are slated for 7:30 face-offs. The Saturday contest will be preceded by the Pat Erway Hockey Benefit game at 5:00 p.m.

Alpena travels to Mahoning Valley for two games Friday and Saturday night.