sports

CROOKSTON GIRL’S HOCKEY COAST TO A 7-0 WIN AT INTERNATIONAL FALLS

December 11, 2021

The International Falls Girl’s Hockey team plays a lot of eighth graders, freshmen and they were overwhelmed by the Crookston Pirate total domination in a 7-0 win at International Falls!

FIRST PERIOD
The first period showed early that the Pirates were going to dominate and Pirate head coach Emily Meyer brought up three JV players and they formed a fourth line which played regularly along with three sets of defensemen. “After our first three shifts, we could seed that we probably had an advantage so we put the youngsters up there and they did well. Parker Strand a freshman from Mayville along with her wings, two eighth-graders, Ava Martin and Emma Laplante played together and ended up with Strand getting two goals and Martin assisted on both of them.
Crookston did score three times in the first period on 23 shots on goal. Morgan Nelson scored on a slap shot in the left circle about the dot after getting a partner pass from Reese Swanson to make it 1-0. Nelson had a hand on the second goal which came 24 seconds after her opening goal. The Sophomore defenseman was along the boards to the left of the goaltender and fired a pass on the ince in front of the Bronco net and Jenna Seaver was there to tip it in and the Pirates had a 2-0 lead in the first two-plus minutes. “We came out playing well in that period,” said Meyer, “I thought we kept the puck in their end 90 percent of the period.” Crookston added one more goal later in the period and it was the first-ever goal for freshman Maddie Harbott who was brought up off the JV for today’s game and was able to get a shot from the left circle to find its way through Harbott got the puck for her first varsity goal and Crookston led 3-0 after one period. “Very good period for us obviously,” said Coach Meyer, “We got some first goals and first points, so everyone was having fun.”

SECOND PERIOD
The second period was another carbon copy of the first period as it was total domination by Crookston and they netted two goals in the process of getting 21 shots on the freshman goalie, Mara Pelland for International Falls. Just after 11 minutes into the period, Kaylie Clauson also got the first goal of her varsity career goal on a wrister from the top of the left circle that Pelland couldn’t find through traffic in front of her and the Pirates lead was now 4-0. Strand would get her first goal of the game a couple of minutes later and the puck outside the Broncos blueline, Stand got the puck and International Falls was caught doing a line change and Strand was in by herself and beat Pelland and Crookston now led 5-0 as the period ended. “It was great to see our young girls on the fourth line did really well,” said Meyer, “Parker got her first goal and Ava Martin getting an assist for a point in her first game. We outshot them 21-0, so we were doing a lot of things right and were being unself8ish passing the puck around when we got low and got two goals but it could have been much more.”

THIRD PERIOD
Same old, same old as the third period was exactly the same as the second with Crookston scoring twice and holding International Falls to no shots on goal! Both goals came in front of rebounds given up by Pelland. The first was Parker Strand again with a little flip shot in front of the goalie to make 6-0 and the game went running time for the rest of of the 11 minutes to go. Crookston’s last goal was another freshman, when Addie Fee found a lot of pucks flying around in front of the Broncos net, she found one and poked it in to give Crookston a 7-0 lead and the rest of the game had some Pirates trying to set up some of the girls that haven’t had a goal. “It was a lot of shots on goal and many shots were wide or blocked by them,” said Coach Meyer, “We played another strong period and really suffocated them in their end and they couldn’t do much as we controlled.” International Falls had only one shot on goal and that was a clearing pass from center ice that would have been icing but it was on net and Kailee Magsam made the one save in the game in the first period. “Kailee had the one save and she said she was cold and her feet hurt from standing so much and no action,” said Meyer. “We played all 19 players in the game running four lines and three defense and Jacey (Larson) our other goalie did not play, so to say it was a good learning experience for those young ones, would be an understatement.”
It was quite a contrast for Crookston as last week they faced the #1 and #2 ranked teams in Minnesota Class A to this weekend where the Pirates outscored Rock Ridge and International Falls 15-1.

Crookston will have two games next week as they are at home on Tuesday with Bemidji and then travel to Detroit Lakes on Thursday for another Section 8 tilt. “It should be a couple of games for us,” said Meyer, “they’ve played pretty well, and then Thursday, we might bring those young girls back up and maybe play the four lines, three sets of defensemen against the Lakers.” International Falls’ next game is against Rock Ridge. Because of limited numbers right now, the Broncos can field only one team so there was no JV game.

	1st	2nd	3rd	Total
CROOKSTON	3	2	2	7
International Falls	0	0	0	0

1st Period
1:55 – Crox – Morgan Nelson (2) (Reese Swanson, Jenna Seaver)
2:19 – Crox – Jenna Seaver (2) (Morgan Nelson, Reese Swanson)
13:22 – Crox – Maddie Harbott (1) (Cassie Solheim, Brekken Tull)

2nd Period
11:19 – Crox -Kaylie Clauson (1) (Grace Fischer, Jocelyn Brekken)
13:26 – Crox – Parker Strand (1) (Reese Swanson, Ava Martin)

3rd Period
4:06 – Crox – Parker Strand (2) (Reese Swanson, Ava Martin)
6:10 – Crox – Addie Fee (5) (Brynley Coleman, Samantha Sanders)