sports

CROOKSTON GIRL’S HOCKEY FALLS TO DEVILS LAKE IN OVERTIME

January 3, 2019

The Crookston Pirates girl’s hockey team lead 1-0 with 15:50 to play in the first period until Devils Lake tied the game with 0:21.4 remaining in the third period before the Firebirds secured the 2-1 win in overtime in a non-section game played at the Burdick Arena in Devils Lake.
The Pirates picked up a dream start just 1:55 into the first period when Nora Peterson forced a steal in the neutral zone with a poke check. Peterson skated the puck into the Devils Lake zone before firing a wrist shot under the blocker of Firebirds’ goaltender Molly Black giving Crookston a 1-0 lead with 15:05 left in the first period. “That’s something we want Nora Peterson to do all the time,” said Crookston head coach Tim Moe. “She has such a good shot, and I challenged her before the game to get some more shots on net, and she started off fantastic. She forced the steal with a nice poke check and put the puck away by their goaltender.” Grace Koshney was outstanding in net throughout the night for the Pirates including 12 saves in the first period protecting the visitor’s 1-0 lead going into the first intermission.
Devils Lake dominated the second period possession time aided by four Crookston penalties that gave the Firebirds an extra skater on the ice for 7:21 of the 17:00 second period. Despite facing an extra skater, Koshney remained perfect in net making 15 saves while her counterpart Molly Black made three saves in net for Devils Lake to preserve the 1-0 scoreline after two periods of play. “We took too many penalties,” said Moe. “We had to kill one off just to start the period, and it just kept happening. Credit Devils Lake, they kept their feet moving, and we didn’t. That’s the story of it. You take penalties due to the other team working harder. The penalties we drew were because we were working harder. You don’t want to see that many penalties, but credit Devils Lake because they played fantastically.”
Devils Lake continued to force the issue in the final period of regulation, however, Crookston managed to kill off one more penalty in the final period while Koshney made 11 saves in the third period to keep Crookston ahead 1-0. In the last minute of regulation, Devils Lake pulled their goaltender to get an extra skater on the ice. With a six-on-five advantage, Elle Black skated the puck behind the Crookston net before sending a pass to Kaylie Klemetsrud. Klemetsrud camped out on the right hashmarks of the left-wing circle where she collected the pass and fired the shot over the outstretched glove of Koshney and into the top of the net tying the game at 1-1 with just 0:21.4 left in the game. “Grace was outstanding, and I told her that after the game,” added Moe. “She did everything she could. It’s tough on a six-on-five at the end of the game. I didn’t have our top line out there, but didn’t want to use a timeout with 1:30 left because their top line was just getting off the ice and unfortunately we didn’t get another stoppage to use a timeout before the tied it.”
Devils Lake carried the game-tying goal momentum into overtime where Vivianna Kraft scored a one-timer slap shot from the slot set up by Abby Reule with 2:52 left in overtime to give the Firebirds a 2-1 win as Crookston suffered its third sudden-death loss of the season. “We competed hard,” summarized Moe. “I’m very happy with the kids, but you take too many penalties, and we don’t have the depth to be able to afford killing so many penalties. I thought we killed penalties well, but their top line is so good, and we couldn’t hold them off long enough. We had our chances; we just couldn’t finish. At the end, we lost somebody in front, and you just can’t keep giving up shots in front of the net and expect to win hockey games.”
The Pirates fall to 2-11-1 this season and return to the ice on Monday when Crookston travels to Thief River Falls at 7:30 p.m. on KROX. Devils Lake improves to 6-5-0 this year.