The Red Lake Falls Eagles Boys Hockey team scored 5 goals in the first period and never looked back as they took down the Lake of the Woods Bears by a score of 10-1 at Cardin Hunt Arena on Saturday afternoon in the play-in round of the Section 8A Tournament.
FIRST PERIOD –
The first period was pure domination for the Red Lake Falls Eagles, and they got things started right away with a goal at 2:12 by Boe Nelson on a breakaway, allowing them to go up 1-0 early. From there, LOTW began to try and find some offense, and they did get a breakaway, but senior Draven Wirth made the stop. After that, an interference penalty on the Bears put the Eagles on the power play, and the floodgates opened from there. Coby Knott scored 10 seconds into the power play to make it 2-0, and then less than a minute later, Riley Broden scored on a rebound to put the Eagles up 3. A few minutes later, Avery Knott got in on the fun by scoring his first varsity goal, putting the Eagles up 4, and that was quickly followed less than 2 minutes later by Kegan Schmitz, scoring on the power play to put RLF up 5-0. Overall, RLF had 30 shots on goal in the period, and took the 5-0 lead into the intermission.
SECOND PERIOD –
As the second period began, the pace significantly slowed down, and in the entire first half of the period, the Eagles only had 3 shots on goal, and the Bears had none. However, that changed quickly, as Denny Lanctot buried one off of a faceoff, and the Eagles took a 6-0 lead. A few minutes later, the Bears committed a cross-check, an interference and an unsportsmanlike penalty within a 40 second span, and the Eagles were rewarded with a 5-on-3 power play. Riley Broden would cash in on that, scoring his second goal of the game to put the Eagles up 7-0. The other penalties were killed by the Bears, and as Jackson Bessler came out of the box, he got a breakaway, and he beat Draven Wirth with a bardown shot to put the Bears on the board. The Eagles would then get a whopping 9 shots on goal in the final 2 minutes, but Jonah McDougall made all the saves on them, and the game went into the 3rd period with the Eagles holding a 7-1 advantage.
THIRD PERIOD –
In the third period, the Eagles got off to a much quicker start than either of the first two periods. Denny Lanctot scored on a beautiful pass from Coby Knott, and that gave the Eagles an 8-1 lead. The theme of this game for the Bears became penalties. They committed 7 in the first two period, and 6 in the third period alone. The Eagles had at least a minute of 5-on-3 power play time on three separate occasions in this game, and the final two came in this period, and the Eagles scored on both of them. Xavier Payment scored on the first one at 4:49, and Marley Benoit scored on the second one at 10:10. This made it 10-1 RLF, and the game ended very quickly after this, as running time continued. The Bears only got one shot on goal in the entire period with 4 minutes to go, and this allowed the Eagles to cruise to a dominant win.
Red Lake Falls is now 15-11 on the season and will play EGF on Tuesday at 6:00 PM. LOTW ends their year at 3-20.
| Team | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Final |
| Lake of the Woods | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Red Lake Falls | 5 | 2 | 3 | 10 |
1st Period
2:12 – RLF – Boe Nelson
8:13 – RLF (PP) – Coby Knott (Kegan Schmitz, Xavier Payment)
9:04 – RLF – Riley Broden (Denny Lanctot)
12:32 – RLF – Avery Knott (Oliver Melin)
14:23 – RLF (PP) – Kegan Schmitz (Boe Nelson)
2nd Period
8:28 – RLF – Denny Lanctot
12:36 – RLF (PP) – Riley Broden (Xavier Payment)
14:46 – LOTW – Jackson Bessler
3rd Period
1:28 – RLF – Denhy Lanctot (Coby Knott)
4:49 – RLF (PP) – Xavier Payment
10:10 – RLF (PP) – Marley Benoit
| Goalie | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Total |
| Jonah McDougall – LOTW | 25 | 15 | 9 | 49 |
| Draven Wirth – RLF | 5 | 3 | 1 | 9 |
