The Crookston Pirate Boys Hockey team celebrated Senior Night in dominant fashion as they took down the Park Rapids Panthers by a score of 8-2 at the Crookston Sports Center on Monday night.
FIRST PERIOD
The first period started with a unique senior line of Evan Shockman, Wyatt Marsyla and Tony Elbinger before the traditional lines made their way onto the ice. As soon as that happened, Garrett Fischer sniped one past Panther goalie Rylie Wesa to put the Pirates up 1-0. At that moment, the Pirates were up 6-1 in shots on goal on the Panthers, but then the Panthers went on their best offensive spurt of the period, recording 6 straight shots on goal. Then, a penalty shot was awarded to the Panthers after defenseman Grant Funk dove and covered the puck when Chandler was out of net. However, Chandler made the stop, and from there the momentum shifted back to Crookston. After many shot attempts, a sensational individual effort by Liam Larson putting in his own rebound gave the Pirates a 2-0 lead, and that lead would stick into the 1st intermission.
SECOND PERIOD
As the second period began, the Pirates began to take complete control of puck possession and were responsible for nearly all of the shots in the first half of the period. One of those came from Gavin Aakhus on a great feed from Dylan Larson, and that put the Pirates up 3-0. A few minutes later, after a Panther icing, Garrett Fischer blistered a one-timer off the draw past Wesa to put Crookston up 4-0. Less than a minute later, Grant Funk displayed his athleticism by taking the puck away from a Panther, turning around and scoring from a near impossible angle, and that gave the Pirates a 5-0 lead. It looked as though the Pirates were unstoppable, but unfortunately, an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty put the Panthers on the power play, and Ethan Torola was able to fight in a rebound past Teegyn Johnson in net to eliminate the shutout, and take the game to a 5-1 score at the end of two periods.
THIRD PERIOD
The third period started out very similar to the 1st, with the Pirates scoring just over 2 minutes into the period, as Grant Funk scored his second goal of the game to put the Pirates up 6-1. Then, 5 minutes later, Garrett Fischer scored unassisted to record yet another hat trick on the season, putting the Pirates up 7-1 and put the game into running time. The Pirates were unable to make the running time last for the remainder of the game, however, as Easton Brovold scored on a great two-man play to cut the lead down to 7-2. This was a plenty big enough gap for the Pirates to get a win, but the Pirates found a way to end this senior night on a high note. After many moments of trying throughout the year, Cody Demerais fired a shot from the blue line that was tipped in by Wyatt Marsyla, who recorded his first career varsity goal on his senior night, and that allowed the Pirates to cruise to an 8-2 victory.
Crookston improves to 12-6-1 on the season, while Park Rapids falls to 6-12 on the year. Crookston hosts Roseau on Tuesday night.
JV – Played to a 7-7 tie
| Team | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Final |
| Park Rapids | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Crookston | 2 | 3 | 3 | 8 |
1st Period
2:18 – Crookston (PP) – Garrett FIscher (Greyson Ecker, Jay Reese)
14:55 – Crookston – Liam Larson (Gavin Aakhus)
2nd Period
5:00 – Crookston – Gavin Aakhus (Dylan Larson, Masen Reitmeier)
10:37 – Crookston – Garrett Fischer (Greyson Ecker)
11:15 – Crookston – Grant Funk (Garrett Fischer, Jay Reese)
14:13 – Park Rapids (PP) – Ethan Torola (Finn Henry, Brayden Crissinger)
3rd Period
2:19 – Crookston – Grant Funk (Liam Larson, Gavin Aakhus)
7:07 – Crookston – Garrett Fischer
12:32 – Park Rapids – Easton Brovold (Bryce Zubke, Gus Pedersen)
14:46 – Crookston – Wyatt Marsyla (first career, Cody Demerais, Garrett Fischer)
| Goalie | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Total |
| Teegyn Johnson – Crox Brady Chandler – Crox | – 8 | 4 5 | 10 – | 14 13 |
| Rylie Wesa – Park Rapids | 14 | 16 | 9 | 39 |
