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Parker Strand’s overtime goal lifts the Pirates to a 4-3 win over Fort Frances to end the regular season with a win!!

Fittingly it was Crookston senior Parker Strand, who had multiple chances to score throughout the game, came through with the winning goal with 32 seconds left in the overtime to beat visiting Fort Frances (Ontario) 4-3 at the Crookston Sports Center on Friday night in a doubleheader with the boys on Cancer Night that raised over $15,000.

FIRST PERIOD
The first time that Crookston Girl’s Hockey met Fort Frances (Ontario) was on November 29, 2024, during the Thief River Falls Holiday Classic at the Ralph Engelstad Arena in what was Crookston’s second game of the season. Crookston won the game 2-1 with the Pirates senior captain Addie Fee scoring with about five minutes to go. How have both teams improved since then? That was to be found out tonight in a rematch at the Crookston Sports Center.
Fee would start out the game on a positive note with Fee doing some strong work in the offensive zone, stealing a puck from Fort Frances defense and snapping off a high shot that beat Danielle Schram, the Muskies senior goaltender and it was 1-0 four and a half minutes into the game. “That was a nice goal by Addie, working hard, stealing the puck and scoring,” said Crookston head coach Reed Olson, “I thought we came out strong and the key to that is to keep it going, keep pounding them and get a sizeable lead.” Fort Frances would take a little wind out of the Pirates sail scoring five minutes later when Bella Fry jumped on a juicy rebound in front by herself and popped it past Pirates senior goalie, Kambelle Freije to tie it at one apiece. Crookston would answer again when Jocelyn Field made a pass to the left side of the Muskies goal and Pirate eighth grader, Adley Verwest tipped it seemingly just wide of the Fort Frances net and it appeared the Muskies defensemen tipped it in past their goalie to give the Pirates a 2-1 lead about 11 minutes into the period. No one would score the rest of the way with chances by both sides, but it ended up with a 2-1 Crookston lead. “Not that good a period,” said Olson, but like I said earlier we seem to score the first one and then sit back and let them come to us, which is something we have to clean up before Sections next week.”

SECOND PERIOD
It was over 15 minutes of play with nobody scoring in the second period with a few chances by both sides with both goalies playing the puck well. Some pipes were hit, some shots went wide, but Crookston just couldn’t widen their lead. “That wasn’t our strongest period,” said Olson, “we didn’t take advantage of some of the plays we had that appeared to set us up for a goal. Crookston had only two penalties in the period, but Crookston limited the Muskies to six shots on goal. On the second Fort Frances power play it took the Muskies 15 seconds to score with the man advantage on a rifle of a shot from a Muskies freshman, Logan Neurinski, that beat Freije up high, and Fort Frances tied it up a 2-2 with 1:47 to go in the period. Crookston has given up 19 power play goals on 70 attempts for a 73% killing them off. “We talked about going out in the third period and play like we can, show the great crowd tonight during Cancer Night, how we can play,” said Olson, “give us a good frame of mind going into the Section 8A Tournament next week.

THIRD PERIOD
It was the Muskies that came out strong to start the last period when Fry scored her second goal of the game on a rebound again just over four minutes into the period and gave the Muskies their first lead of the game at 3-2. This time Fort Frances had the only two penalties of the period and the Pirates would score on the first round when Crookston’s leading scorer, freshman, Jocelyn Field scored on a nice shot bar down to tie it up 3-3 nine and a half minutes into the period. “That was a big goal for us,” said coach Olson, “the way it was going we needed all the goals we could get.” The Pirates had hit a couple pipes in the period and Fort Frances hit one. Crookston outshot Fort Frances 13-4 in the period, but time wound down for both teams and a 3-3 tie and they were headed for overtime. “I was happy the way we battled back in the third period,” said Olson, “but when we put up 35 to 40 shots in a game, we should have more than three goals.”

OVERTIME
They played seven and a half minutes of the eight-minute overtime with nobody scoring and each team having four shots on goal. Everything is magnified in overtime, sticks are held tighter, nobody wants to make a mistake. Crookston senior Parker Strand, who is from Mayville, N.D. as is eighth grader, Hadley Verwest who scored an earlier goal in the first period. Every day these young ladies drive an hour each way to practice, catch the bus for games. That’s called dedication to playing hockey as Crookston has a cooperative in girl’s hockey with Mayville-Portland, N.D. and Sacred Heart Catholic School in East Grand Forks. Strand had to feel like she was snake bit having the best chances of the night for the Pirates but unable to score. “I did think I was a little snake bit,” said Strand, “I had quite a few chances and I could never quite bury them.”  Strand did bury the most important goal of the game with 32 seconds left of the overtime, Strand now playing with Field and Fee on a line. All three were on the right side of the Muskies goal and Fee managed to get a pass to Field who moved it to Strand who quickly took a one-timer to beat Schram and the game winner in a 4-3 win for Crookston. “Me, Addie and Jocelyn have been working pretty good,” said Strand, “we just kind of changed that today after not being with them to much this year. They got low, and I was in front of the net looking to screen, and I think it was Addie that got me the pass and I one-timed it, which I wanted to do as you don’t want to handle the puck too much when they can take it away or the goalie can move over. I’ve been working on going over the blocker and it went under her blocker.” It was the seventh goal of the season for the senior who was certainly happy with the win but thought it could have been better. “I thought we came out slow, I don’t think we worked as hard as we know we can. The first couple periods we weren’t passing as we are able to, but we picked it up in the third period but we struggled varying so we have to work on that a little bit and worked hard in the overtime showed what we can do.”

Crookston improves to 13-10-1 on the season and will probably command the number two seed for the Section  8A Tournament. Seeding is Monday morning, and it’s expected that Warroad will be the number one seed for the tournament, with EGF or TRF third and fourth, followed by Detroit Lakes and International Falls. The first round of the Tournament is Thursday, February 6 at the high seeds with #6 at #3 and #5 at #4. The semi-finals will be at the Ralph Engelstad Arena in Thief River Falls on Saturday, February 8 with Warroad playing the 5/4 winner at 1:00 PM and Crookston will follow at 3:30 PM playing the winner of 6/3. The Section 8A championship will be on Thursday, February 13 at the Ralph in Thief River Falls.
Fort Frances is now 18-9-1 on the year and will be at Morris tomorrow afternoon to play Morris-Benson in Morris. That will conclude the regular season for the Muskies who will play in their league semi-finals next weekend for the right to go to the Ontario championships in Sudbury, Ontario.

Team1st2nd3rdOTFinal
Fort Frances11103
Crookston20114

1st Period
4:32 – Crookston – Addie Fee (14) unassisted
9:43 – FF – Bella Fry (Sophia Tanguay)
10:45 – Crookston – Hadley Verwest (2) (Jocelyn Field)

2nd Period
15:23 – FF – Logan Neurinski (Bella Fry, Ophelia Lucas-Engberg) (PP)

3rd Period
4:07 – FF – Bella Fry (Blaire Cross)
9:31 – Crookston – Jocelyn Field (17) (Adley Vigness, Parker Strand)

Overtime
7:28 – Crookston – Parker Strand (7) (Addie Fee, Jocelyn Field)

Goalie1st2nd3rdOTTotal
Kambelle Freije-Crox653418
Danielle Schram – FF10812535
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