You know the old saying — offense wins games and defense wins championships.
If the Sioux City Musketeers are going to knock off this year’s USHL Anderson Cup champion Lincoln Stars in the Western Conference semifinals, they’ll need the kind of defensive effort they put out in disposing of last year’s Clark Cup champions on Wednesday at the Tyson Events Center.
Sioux City blew out the Fargo Force 7-0 on Tuesday and scored three unanswered goals in the final 12 minutes to sweep the 2025 USHL champs 5-2 to move on to this weekend’s best-of-5 conference semifinals against the Lincoln Stars, a team that dominated the regular season with a league-high 44 wins.
Sioux City coach Jason Kersner said Tuesday’s blowout win was good to see, but coming back with an opportunity to take out the defending champs was going to take some moxie.
“The toughest game is to end someone’s season,” he said after the win. “Fargo came out really hard and aggressive and I think were better than us in the first period, but we weathered the storm and as the game wore on I really liked our game.”
Kersner pointed to the defense’s ability to keep Fargo off the board at regular strength. The Force scored a late second-period power play goal and tied the game early in the third on a questionable penalty call on Jake Delaney. Delaney was battling with Fargo’s Kiernan Poulan in the corner with the referee standing over the play. Delaney tried to get away, but couldn’t because Poulan held Delaney’s stick under his arm and wouldn’t let it go. In frustration, Delaney jerked the stick out and pushed Poulan to the ice, drawing the penalty that led to the game-tying power play goal.
Still, Sioux City’s defense rose to the occasion.
“I thought we defended really well,” Kersner said. “We didn’t give up a 5-on-5 goal in two games and that team defense is what drove us to the success.”
Any good defense is anchored by a quality netminder, and Kersner said the Musketeers have the best in the league in second-year goalie Sam Urban.
Urban stopped 22 shots in Wednesday’s series-clinching win, and he said the experience of last year’s playoff chase has helped him improve this season.
“I feel pretty good in net,” he said. “This is my second year in the league and my second time in the playoffs, and our defense did a pretty good job in both games in this series. We gave up more chances to night and you have to give Fargo credit for that, but I thought we played well tonight.”
Urban has played well between the pipes for the Muskies, going 22-15-1-0 with a 2.96 goals-against average and a .899 save percentage, which ranks ninth in the USHL this season.
“He’s the best goalie in the league,” Kersner said. “When you’ve got a guy like that behind you it gives you a lot of confidence, and we feel like any time we get off the bus we have the best chance to win because we have the best goalie in the league.”
Urban said the team’s defense will be tested against a Lincoln Stars team that scored 16 goals in six games against the Muskies this season on their way to posting the league’s best record.
“They won the Anderson Cup, so they’re obviously pretty good, but if we play like did in this series, I think we have a chance to win,” he said.
