Portage Muskies spearhead the best start in the program’s short history
PORTAGE, Mich. — The Portage Muskies are off to a strong 7-4 start to their season and will wait to resume play until after the New Year against Lumen Christi High School on Jan. 5. The Muskies picked up their seventh victory on Friday night, taking down the Eastside Stars 4-2 in East Lansing. However, the next day the Portage Central and Portage Northern co-op team would fall in a tight contest to the Capital City Capitals by a score of 5-4.
Junior forward and captain, Beckett Saline, is not only pleased with the start to his season individually, but relishes in the opportunity to lead and help keep his team atop the South-Central Hockey League standings down the stretch.
“My expectations are high,” Saline said. “We have all the right pieces to go pretty far in the playoffs and to have an excellent second half of the season.”
Saline has certainly been one of the team’s key pieces. After logging an assist on Friday and a goal on Saturday, he now has 10 goals and 17 assists for a total of 27 points heading into the holiday break. Saline said it is the best start to a season in his entire hockey career.
The Muskies are in the middle of just the second season of the program’s history, as the former rivalry between the Portage Central Mustangs and the Portage Northern Huskies came to an end upon combining their teams due to a shortage of players. The team went 4-10 in the 2020-21 regular season, while the program and the South-Central Hockey League tangled with scheduling issues caused by COVID-19. All of last season’s games were played from February 12 to March 17 of 2021, as the team was knocked out of the regional tournament after a 7-3 loss to Mona Shores.
With the time frame and amount of games on this season’s schedule essentially returning to normal, Saline knows what he has to do as a captain to keep the momentum going for his team.
“Personally, I think my energy and ability to give constructive criticism and help the team improve as a whole led me to 9being captain),” Saline said. “It definitely means a lot to me, knowing that my teammates trusted me with the role.”
Assistant captain and senior forward, Ryan Jaros, has been doing his part to keep the momentum going as well. Jaros leads the Muskies with 34 total point while netting 12 goals and dishing out 22 assists. He also had himself an impressive weekend, scoring two goals on Friday in the winning effort over Eastside while racking up another two goals and two assists in Saturday’s loss to Capital City.
In the Muskies’ huge 10-3 blowout over Northview High on Dec. 11, the forwards notched five points each in the effort by way of two goals and three assists for Jaros while Saline collected a goal and four assists.
The Muskies head coach, Drew Moffit, has been at the helm for the first two years of the program’s history. Additionally, he is the Michigan scout for the Tier-II junior hockey team called the Wichita Falls Warriors out of Wichita Falls, Texas. He is also an assistant coach for the Western Michigan University Stallions hockey club, which is part of the American Collegiate Hockey Association.
Saline said that Moffit’s experiences, both coaching and scouting at various levels, brings a high level of coaching and hockey knowledge to Portage’s co-op hockey program.
The Muskies have nine games remaining on their regular season schedule. Despite being 2-3 in conference, the team’s 14 points have earned them the South-Central Hockey League standings with their next opponent, Lumen Christi, following close behind with 12 points.
Portage will seek redemption on Jan. 5 as the Lumen Christi Titans handed the Muskies a 6-2 defeat in their last meeting back on Dec. 4.
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