By Michael Murakami
MN Hockey Hub

When Lakeville South scores a goal, there are certain times when you don’t even need to wait for the announcement to hear who lit the lamp for the Cougars.

You just know which player.

After all, Lakeville South senior Justin Kloos has been a scoring machine throughout his entire high school career, amassing 135 points (66 goals, 69 assists) in 48 games -- a 2.81 point per game average -- and that’s only his sophomore and junior year totals.

This season, the future University of Minnesota Golden Gopher already has 50 points (22 goals, 28 assists) through 15 games.

You do the math.

“He's just so skilled,” Lakeville South coach Kurt Weber said. “When he gets going, he can really obviously change the game. As you see, everything about him, both ends of the ice, he's a hard worker and he just continues to come (to play) every night.”

Kloos registered his second hat trick of the season and added an assist during his team’s 6-3 victory over Burnsville on Thursday, Jan. 19.

Heading into the game against the Blaze, Lakeville South had lost three of its last six and Weber noted the rough patch was affecting the Cougars’ captain.

“I think (Kloos) was a little tired -- he gets beat on pretty hard,” Weber said. “But he came the last couple practices really wound-up. I think he sees that we lost a couple to teams that maybe we shouldn't have earlier and he realizes that the burden rides on him and some of the older guys to get everybody going again.”

With the high scoring win, it seems like Lakeville South is back on the right track.

“It was a good team win,” Kloos said. “Everyone came to play tonight, it was exciting. We got off to a quick start which has kind of been our Achilles' heel lately, we haven't been able to get a good (first) period in. We got out, two goals up early and it really helped us keep our momentum throughout the game.”

Weber agreed while also noting that he hopes the momentum gained from his team’s victory over a South Suburban Conference rival will carry over into their upcoming schedule.

“It's a huge confidence booster for us,” Weber said. “For us we knew it would be a tough game coming in so it's a huge momentum swing. This is really a good test of where we want to be. We played well, all three periods which was nice and we had everyone contribute. Everybody did their thing.”

It almost goes without saying, but one person that definitely ‘did their thing’ was Kloos.

“For Justin, on the ice obviously he can make such a difference but he's also in the locker room talking to guys,” Weber said. “He’s also a cheerleader for us. We're enjoying the time with him.”

And Kloos isn’t regretting a single minute of it.

“It's been a really fun year,” Kloos said. “This is why I came back -- to be with my friends and have fun. We had a rough couple weeks but we're starting to get our step.

“But I'm just having fun with all my friends and I couldn't ask for more.”