USHL Clark Cup Playoffs: Sioux City falls to Fargo as Western finals evens at 2-2 (2024)

The Sioux City Musketeers knew Fargo would be a tough out.

Now the Muskies will have to go against the Force in a decisive Game 5 in Fargo.

Sioux City could've closed out the USHL Western Conference finals and advanced to the Clark Cup Championship with a win over the Force on Friday night at Tyson Events Center in Sioux City, but Fargo had other ideas and beat the Musketeers 5-0 to even the best-of-five series at two games apiece.

"We thought the game was closer than the score indicated," said Sioux City head coach Jason Kersner. "We took some bad bounces, some bad puck luck didn't go our way. But (Fargo) deserved to win, they played better than us."

Game 5 is Sunday in Fargo at 5:05 p.m.

Down 2-0 entering the final period, the Musketeers tried to get back in it and cut the lead in half with a score, but momentum went the other way as Fargo went up 3-0 on a goal that saw a shot attempt sail high of the Sioux City goal only to deflect off the board back toward the net, deflect off the skate of Jake Fisher and pop up in the air and over the the shoulder of Sioux City goaltender Samuel Urban for a goal.

"It's just like any other game for us, win or lose," Kersner said. "We go back and watch video, get our rest and move on to the next game.

"I liked our first period today better than ours from (Thursday's Game 3), but we didn't get the result here tonight. We had some opportunities to score and didn't. It kind of reminded me of Game 1 where we left some stuff on the table. The game to close out a series is always the toughest, and we knew that was going to be the case."

Fisher's goal came with assists toTate Taylor and Mac Swanson. It went down as Swanson's eighth assist of the postseason.

Fargo ended the regular season with a USHL record 50 wins over 62 games to win the Western Conference with Sioux City (34-22-6-0) in second place.

"We didn't come in thinking we were going to sweep one of the best teams of all-time," Kersner said.

Despite the 5-0 final, most statistics were nearly even if not favored Sioux City, Fargo was just able to turn opportunities into goals.

And while the matchup features two of the best goaltenders in the USHL, Fargo's Hampton Slukynsky recoveredfrom perhaps his worst performance of the postseason in Game 3, which the Muskies took, 5-2.

Urban stopped 14 of 19 Fargo shots faced in goal before being subbed out for Dylan Silverstein, who saved had three saves on as many shots faced.

Slukynsky was superb in net with 20 saves. He was replaced by Anton Castro late, and Castro made one save as the Force held the Muskies scoreless.

Sioux City was able to kill four Fargo power plays while the Muskies one had one power play that wasn't capitalized on with a goal.

The Force only put one more shot on goal (22-21) and the sides were even at 12 each at the end of the second period.

Tom Leppa got Fargo on the board with a goal off of a Reid Daavettila assist 11½ minutes into the contest.

The Force got their second score less than four minutes into the second asDaavettila got a stick on a deflected puck in front of the net and scored with assists to Leppa and Michael Quinn.

While the score dampened the home crowd a bit, it was a raucous, nearly sold out atmosphere at the Tyson Events Center for Game 4.

"It was unbelievable," Kersner said. "It can feel like that sometimes here if there are only 2,000 people here, but to have as many people that came tonight, with that environment, it's amazing. We feel bad we weren't able to get a better result, but we know how much they care and want them to know how much we care about them."

As the third wore on, the wheels started to come off for the Muskies as the Fisher score started a three-goal period for Fargo.

Brandon Svoboda scored two minutes after Fisher's skate helped him collect his third goal of the playoffs as Quinn and Gavin Morrissey were credited with assists to set up Svoboda.

Then, just over the midway point of the third, Michael Neumeier secured his first score of the playoffs on assists by Zam Plante and Iiro Hakkarainen.

The contest got chippy at times as there was a total of 78 penalty minutes handed out on 17 infractions, though some of those minutes double-counted on 10-minute misconduct/fighting calls that came with five-minute majors.

The second period saw two different stoppages that saw four different players slapped with infractions associated with fighting.

A short turn-around and trip to Fargo leaves the Muskies with little time to prepare, but Sioux City remains confident going against a very familiar foe one more time in a do-or-die contest with a trip to the Clark Cup finals at stake, where Eastern Conference champion Dubuque awaits.

"Game 5 for us starts right now," Kersner said. "It'll be a challenge. We felt like we played a really good Game 1 but didn't get the result, but still bounced back and took the next two. Beating the team that just had the most wins in USHL history was going to be a tough task."