Six days removed from their last game, the Edgewood Crusaders didn't appear to have any rust to shake off at LaBahn Arena on Monday night.
Edgewood's dominant 7-0 win on Monday over Monroe sets up the Crusaders for a Badger South-clinching game at McFarland Thursday night.
After some back-and-forth early in the game, Edgewood lit the lamp late in the first period when Payton Smith took a pass from J.J. Wiebusch across the crease to make it 1-0 Crusaders. Only 74 seconds later, it was Cody Menzel knocking home a loose puck, with another assist tallied to Wiebusch, to give Edgewood a 2-0 lead after one period.
In the second period, Wiebusch would get his goal, rocketing home a feed from Will Hartman to give the Crusaders a 3-0 lead. Near the midway point of the second period, Hartman took a shot from left point near the blue line, and the puck carried in just under the crossbar for a 4-0 Edgewood lead after two periods.
Edgewood kept up the pressure in the third period, sending 19 shots in on goal with three getting across. Smith earned his second goal of the game just two minutes into the period. Less than two minutes later, Matthew Moyez got a great feed from Smith to get a short-handed goal to increase the lead to 6-0. Edgewood tacked on one more goal, the second of the game for Menzel, to give the Crusaders a power-play goal with a little more than five minutes left in the game.
Thursday's game at McFarland represents a chance for the Crusaders to clinch the Badger South outright over the second-place Spartans, who they beat earlier this season 6-2.
Monroe, meanwhile, will return to the SLICE for a non-conference showdown with Sauk Prairie, who they played back in November to a 5-2 loss, which before tonight was their biggest loss of the season. Monroe is also in action Thursday at Stoughton.