EAST ALTONEast Alton-Wood River's hockey team had to forget their Monday night loss to Columbia pretty quickly when they took on Highland in a Mississippi Valley Club Hockey Association game at East Alton Ice Arena Tuesday night.

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The Oilers did just that, getting hat tricks from Cole Ford and Kaleb Harrop and two goals from Tyson Knight in a 8-6 win over the Bulldogs.

“We played a good game (Monday) night and we got down early in this one,” said Oiler coach John Helmkamp, “but the guys battled back and got the win.

“It was a good way to bounce back; this team's always had character and they never quit, no matter what. Even though it was early and it hurt a little bit, we did bounce back. That's a good thing.”

Helmkamp was referring to the way the Bulldogs opened the the game; they got two goals from Brock Troxell in the game's opening 21 seconds, the first unassisted, the second assisted by Hunter Micheletto, that put Highland quickly up 2-0.

Undaunted, the Oilers battled back, scoring three times in a 70-second span late in the first period, Knight scoring from Ford with 1:37 left in the period, Harrop scoring with 47 seconds left in the frame and Ford giving the Oilers the lead with 27.1 seconds left.

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“We only had three guys scoring, but that was nice,” Helmkamp said. “Kaleb Harrop got his first hat trick as a freshman, which is great; he's really coming on in his freshman year, and Tyson Knight got two goals, which is a big deal for him, and then Cole Ford, our anchor, had the other hat trick.

“That's three core players for us, so it was nice to see them get on the scoresheet that much.”

Highland tied the game again at 3-3 on a Devin Korte goal nearly halfway through the second period, but Knight got his second goal with 5:51 left on an assist from Austin Compton, then Ford made it 5-2 on his second goal with 2:18 left in the period, Tyler McHatton getting the assist.

Ford finished off his hat trick early in the third when he got a pass from Bryce Bazzell and beat Micheletto just 17 seconds into the third, then Harrop got his second goal on an assist from Chris Hamby with 12:26 left in the third. Undaunted, Tyler Lange cut the lead to 7-4 with 9:23 left, then got to 7-5 when Troxell finished off a hat trick of his own with 5:01 left. Harrop then finished his hat trick with 4:20 to go, with the assist going to Hamby; Highland capped off the scoring with an unassisted Eric Vice shorthanded goal with 1:49 to go.

The Oilers recorded 21 shots on goal, with Micheletto getting 13 saves; Highland had 15 shots on goal, with the Oilers' Tyler Hamby recording nine saves.

EA-WR meets Bethalto in a 7:15 p.m. game Tuesday at East Alton, then takes part in the MVCHA New Year's Day tripleheader at East Alton when they meet up with Freeburg/Waterloo at 4 p.m.