sports

#8 RANKED CROOKSTON GIRLS HOCKEY DOMINATES EAST GRAND FORKS IN A 3-0 SECTION 8A VICTORY

December 19, 2023

The Crookston Pirate Girl’s Hockey teams, ranked #8 in the latest Minnesota State Class A polls released today, is the only unbeaten team in Section 8A as they started strong with a couple goals 35 seconds apart in the first period and would dominate the East Grand Forks Green Wave 3-0 in a game played at the Civic Center in East Grand Forks.

East Grand Forks came into the game with a high-octane offense led by sophomore Blake Schultz with 22 goals in 11 games. The Green Wave had scored 50 goals on the season while the Pirates with one more game had scored 35 goals coming in. “We knew Crookston was a good team from the goalie out,” said East Grand Forks first year head coach Alex Robertson, “they’ve shown they don’t give many opportunities to score and when we have a chance, we have to put it away.” Crookston stormed out in the first period and in total domination of the Green Wave and everything for the Pirates offensively happened in the four-minute mark of the period. Crookston took a 1-0 lead at the 4:05 mark when Morgan Nelson got the puck back near the Green Wave blue line from Jocelyn Field and Nelson scored her second goal of the season with a blast that beat Britlyn Rasmussen, the Green Wave goalie. “It was about time,” said Crookston head coach Emily Meyer, “that kid takes some good shots from the point, and she gets a little discouraged, but seeing her with the smiling face when she popped in that goal, that’s what it’s all about, proving she can score even back there on the blue line and her solid play defensively really helped too.” 10 seconds after the Pirate goal, Crookston took a penalty, and the Pirates would score their first short-handed goal of the year. Addie Fee, the leading goal scorer for the Pirates, garnered her sixth of the season, taking away a puck from the Green Wave defenseman in their corner and Fee walked out to the right side of their goal and snuck it past the short side of the goalie to make it 2-0 with the goals coming 35 seconds apart. “Addie’s one of those kids on the PK that is always so aggressive, reading the pucks so well, gets in the passing lanes and is one that can put up numbers whether its five on five, five on four or four on four. To see her work on the penalty kill rewarded with a goal was good to see,” said Meyer. Crookston ended up outshooting East Grand Forks 21-2 in the period and rewarded with a 2-0 lead. “Everybody was pumped up in the locker room as it was just the style of hockey that we know we can play. We wanted to come out strong and it was the best period of hockey we’ve played this year,” said Meyer.

The second period was a period that Crookston had three power play goals that they couldn’t capitalize on. At around the five-minute mark Crookston thought they had scored when an Ashlyn Bailey wrist shot hit the Green Wave goalie, bounced off her glove, over her body and somehow dropped behind her without going past the red line for a goal! “That almost had to be a goal,” said Meyer, “or their goalie managed to pluck it out before it hit the ice. We want Ashlyn to keep shooting and they will start going in for her, or we can get a tip or rebound off her shot.” Crookston outshot the Green Wave again in the second period 14-2, which was aided by three power plays. But although East Grand Forks was playing a little more physical in the period, Crookston dominated, whether it was a five on four or skating short-handed. “We came down a little bit in the second period,” said Crookston forward, Brynley Coleman, who goes to school in Hatton, N.D. and is part of the Crookston cooperative with Mayville-Portland and Hatton (N.D.), “we probably took our foot off the gas at times, but although we didn’t score, we continued to play defense, not allowing them any real good chances.” Of the four saves in the game thus far for Pirate goalie, Kambelle Freije, two were dump ins and the other two were shots from the outside, which she handled with aplomb.

Crookston would come out with a power play goal six and a half minutes into the final period when sophomore Emma LaPlante was able to score with a battle in front of the East Grand Forks goal. Crookston put a shot on goal and then it was a scrum in front with the Pirates jamming at the puck and finally LaPlante got her stick on it to knock it in and gave the Pirates a little more breathing room with a 3-0 lead. Crookston did have to kill off a five on three East Grand Forks power play for 49 seconds. They did that nicely and killed both off. Crookston is killing off penalties at a 97% clip this season and scoring about 24% on the power play. “We pride ourselves on our power play,” said Meyer, “we have some smart players out there, we have good speed, and they really get after the other teams.” The Pirates did take three late penalties in the period, and it was the time East Grand Forks mounted their best scoring chances with shots from the outside that Freije had no problems with. In many respects, Crookston wore down East Grand Forks, particularly from their first period performance and took a lot out of the Green Wave. “I think it did,” said Coach Meyer, “we had a number of chances, and they really couldn’t put anything together offensively until late in the third period when we took those penalties.”

Crookston ended up outshooting East Grand Forks 50-14 in the game and Freije recorded her fourth shutout of the season! In the first game of the season, Kambelle gave up five goals in a 5-0 loss to Prior Lakes with only 16 saves. Since that game, Freije is 8-2-1 with a goal’s against average of 0.92 and a save percentage of .954, making claims as one of the better goalies in the state of Minnesota!!!
Crookston improves to 9-3-1 on the year winning six of their last seven games and the only loss in that stretch was a 2-1 overtime loss to Bemidji. “It’s a nice win to go into Christmas,” said Coach Meyer, “We can get ready for the Warroad Holiday Classic and three games back-to-back next week.” Crookston is 5-0 in the Section 8A games they’ve played, beating each of the other five teams in the Section. Crookston will play Fort Frances in the first game at Warroad on December 26, Rosemount on December 27, and the rematch with Warroad on December 28. East Grand Forks is now 6-5-1 and will play at Grand Forks on Thursday.
JV – Crookston won 9-1