sports

CROOKSTON GIRL’S HOCKEY SHUTS OUT THIEF RIVER FALLS

November 10, 2023

What a difference 24 hours makes as the Crookston Pirates Girl’s Hockey team, who were held scoreless last night in a 5-0 at home to Prior Lakes, rebound with a 3-0 win over the Thief River Falls Prowlers at the Ralph Engelstad Arena. Emma LaPlante, Addie Fee, and Brynley Coleman scored, and junior goalie Kambelle Freije stopped 14 shots for her first shutout in the Section 8A win on the road.

Crookston had to make some changes with defenseman Ashlyn Bailey out with a back injury suffered last night in the Prior Lakes game. Morgan Nelson was moved back to defense, where she played last year, and the top two lines were changed a bit. The Pirates started the game with some hop and had some excellent grade-A quality chances but were turned aside by Freshman goalie McKenna Carr to keep the Pirates off the scoreboard. With just under six minutes left in the period, Crookston sophomore defenseman Emma LaPlante played defense as compared to a forward last year, where she scored 13 goals, grabbed a Thief River Falls clearing pass, and walked in on the Prowler defense, made a move that put her all alone with the goalie and snapped off a shot that beat Carr to her glove side for the first goal of the season for Crookston and a 1-0 lead. Thief River Falls put on a little rush later in the period, but Freije was on her game tonight after giving up five goals last night and stopped everything her way, deflecting shots to the corner, using her glove, and Crookston was up 1-0 after a period. “Our girls learned a lot playing last night against Prior Lake,” said Crookston head coach Emily Meyer, “We told the team that we had to make sure they took control of the game, and I thought we did that right away. We were aggressive on the forecheck and controlling in their zone, which was a good spark. Emma’s goal was a huge momentum swing for us as we were still gripping our sticks a little tight, wondering if we would ever score.”

The Pirates got more breathing room with a couple of goals about two and a half minutes apart in the second period. Addie Fee and Reese Swanson played a nice back-and-forth in the Prowler zone when Fee snapped off a shot from the right circle that beat the Prowler goalie to make it 2-0. “Addie ripping that shot, which the goaltender didn’t even see it, didn’t even flinch,” said coach Meyer. Then the Pirates had the puck in the Prowlers zone a lot, and Jocelyn Field and Brekken Tull worked hard behind the Thief River Fall net and worked in front to Brynley Coleman, who put a quick backhander past Carr to open it up to a 3-0 Crookston lead. “Brynley works so hard being gritty in front of the net. We were talking about how standing in front of the opponent’s net can give you some greasy goals, which are the most fun,” said Meyer. The Pirates, not quite in full conditioning mode, started tiring toward the end of the period but still kept Thief River Falls bottled up, forcing them into a lot of turnovers. Taylor Field had a point-blank shot stopped by Carr to keep the Pirates with a 3-0 lead after two periods.

Crookston started the third period with a 1:57 power play, and it turned into a 5-3 advantage for 20 seconds, but they were unable to score. Crookston was 0-5 on the power play tonight and 0-8 in their two games. “Yes, that is something we are going to work on in practice next week,” said Meyer, “You know, we look so good in practice on the power play, but we get into the game and just can’t put it together.” On the other side, Crookston’s penalty kill has been perfect, killing off all six power plays against them. “We throw Addie and Brynley out there on the PK, and we let them do their thing, and they do an excellent job,” said Meyer.
Thief River Falls made one last charge in the final minute of the game, and with nine seconds to go in the game, the Prowlers Kalli Knutson rang one off the pipe and bounced away to preserve Freije’s shutout. “Kambelle didn’t see a lot of shots, but she was on top of her game tonight and had to make some tough shots to help and was very instrumental in the win, ” said Meyer.
Crookston evens their record at 1-1 on the season and are off next week until Saturday when they will host Fort Frances, Ontario, in an early matchup at 10:30 AM at the Crookston Sports Center, varsity only. “This will give us a chance to work on some of the things we need after the first two games have pointed out some areas we need to work on,” said Meyer. Thief River Falls is 0-1 on the season, has a weekend break, and will play at Detroit Lakes on Monday.
JV – Crookston won 5-3