Trey Wilson stays on a tear with third hat trick to lead Liberty over St. Dominic

Wilson scored three goals to lead the Eagles to a 5-2 win over St. Dominic in a Mid-States Club Hockey Association St. Charles Division game Tuesday night at Wentzville Ice Arena.

He now has 16 goals in just six games this season. It was his third hat trick in his last four games, and only Duchesne’s Nickolas Morgan (19 goals) has found the back of the net more so far this season.

“Just putting pucks on net, getting the puck deep, working real hard, just whatever gets the job done,” Wilson said. “I got my teammates by my side, they’re always here for me, making sure I get the puck.”

Zach Pruss and Quinn Scrogin also scored for Liberty (5-3-0). Freshman goaltender Ethan Eager made 20 saves to earn his first varsity win.

Joshua Yahn scored and Hunter Ramirez made 18 saves for St. Dominic (5-1-3).

Liberty had the jump off the opening faceoff.

Wilson rang a shot off the post in the game’s opening seconds, and moments later Pruss took advantage of a missed clearing attempt by St. Dominic to give the Eagles a 1-0 lead just 82 seconds into the game.

Wilson made good from his earlier miss, scoring off a Lucas Kempf feed to give Liberty a 2-0 lead at 4:16 of the first period.

“When it comes to high school hockey, there's few teams that are lucky enough to have those kind of skill kids and they can change the flow of a game individually,” Liberty coach Mark Turnipseed said of Wilson. “He's great but plays a good team game as well.”

Wilson added to the lead early in the second after being sprung on a breakaway on a perfect outlet pass from Kempf. Wilson finished the sequence with a nice forehand-backhand combo to make it 3-0 Liberty 70 seconds into the middle frame.

“When I get the puck, the first thing I'm doing is looking for Trey,” Kempf said. “I know he's faster than probably all the defense out there.”

Scrogin’s first varsity goal, a deflection off a Crusaders’ defender and into the upper corner, gave the Eagles a 4-0 lead with 4:11 left in the second.

Despite being outscored in the second, St. Dominic turned up the pressure, outshooting the Eagles 12-7 in the frame. But Eager made several tough saves, including going side to side to get his pad on a Caiden Darby chance early in the second.

“The message before the game in the locker room was, we have to play a team game, because we've struggled with that from time to time,” Turnipseed said. “They took that onto the ice and played a team game, and we just have to keep following that same routine. And again, anytime we play together as a team and work together on the ice, we’re hard to stop.”

Wilson completed the hat trick early in the third period, picking out the far upper corner with a shot just inside the blue line.

“I was not expecting that at all,” Wilson said. “I was standing still and just threw it at net, and it found a way in.”

Yahn got the Crusaders on the board at 3:33 of the third and added another with 4:07 left.

Handing St. Dominic its first loss of the season was a confidence builder for Liberty.

“That's like the first game that our whole team's been there,” Kempf said. “We haven’t played many team games together, so it just shows, like, what we are as a team and how good we can be.”