The Crookston Pirates Girls Hockey team is playing the most demanding schedule of any Class A Hockey team in Minnesota. Tonight, they ran into the cream of the crop in Centennial/Spring Lake Park, who stung the Pirates handily 7-1 in a game at the Centennial Sports Arena in Circle Pines on Friday night.
FIRST PERIOD
Crookston head coach Reed Olson said before the game, “This team we are playing tonight is quick, and we have to be ready again playing teams like this to be five seconds quicker than we have been. They will not give us space or time to handle the puck.” It appeared the Pirates didn’t realize how quick the Cougars were! Centennial scored just over four minutes into the game when their first-line freshman center, Mia Sutch, scored her 15th goal of the season on a terrific pass from the Cougars top player, senior Teagan Kulenkamp, to make it 1-0. About five minutes later, Kulenkamp would score her 20th goal of the year as she received a pass at the circle to the left of the Pirate goal, skated right up to Pirate goalie Kambelle Freije, and snuck it past to put Centennial up 2-0. Freije ended up with 17 saves In the first period as the Pirates were outshot 19-3!! “We didn’t respond very well in the first period,” said Olson, “we had trouble getting the puck out of our zone. When we would get the puck in their zone, it was for a second, and then they had one pass out of the zone to center ice and into our zone. We did get a couple of nice chances, but that was about it.”
SECOND PERIOD
Centennial scored two goals in a 10-second span in the second period. Six and a half minutes into the period, Grace Laager scored her 11th goal of the season on a screened shot on Freije. The whole first line of Sutch, Kulenkamp, and Laager scored a goal, which was a total of 47 amongst them. 10 seconds later, Sutch scored her second g from Kulenkamp. Kulenkamp, who is attending the University of St. Thomas next year to play Division I Women’s Hockey, had one goal and three assists to lead the Cougars to a 4-0 lead after two periods. “They have a great first line and three lines, actually,” said Olson, “Kambelle played very well, keeping us in the game despite getting outshot like we were.”
Crookston had the only power play opportunity in the period and although they didn’t score, they created some nice chances. Half of their six shots came during the power play. Crookston was outshot 15-6 in the period and 34-9 through two periods. “They weren’t playing out top on our power play, so we were telling our players to move down, and when they started doing that, we had some good chances again,” said Olson.
THIRD PERIOD
The Cougars came out strong in the third period as well, scoring 46 seconds into the period when Maggie Wolter beat Freije with a shot up high. Sutch would complete her hat-trick from Kulenkamp to make it 6-0 four and a half minutes into the period. The goal would start running time. 45 seconds later, Centennial took the only penalty of the period, and Crookston struck on the power play when freshman Jensen Stinar snapped a rebound while she was standing to the left of the Cougar’s goal. It was Stinar’s fourth goal of the year. “It was nice to see Jensen get that power-play goal; she was in the right place at the right time, and her hard work paid off,” said Olson. With seven and a half minutes left in the game, freshman Annabelle Buccicone finished the scoring off to make It 7-1. “I liked the way we finished,” said Olson, “I thought the goal sparked us, and we had more chances in the later part of the game. We ran into the best team we’ve faced this year so far. They are very good and were ranked #1 of 20 Class AA schools in the Minneapolis Tribune’s ranking, which is pretty good. Hopefully, we can learn from this game and get ready for tomorrow afternoon’s contest.”
Crookston is 11-7-1 on the season and will be at Champlin Park/Coon Rapids tomorrow afternoon with JV at 1:00 PM and Varsity at 3:00 PM. Champlin Park/Coon Rapids is 12-7-1, and their last game was Tuesday when they lost to Centennial 5-3 with an open net goal.
Champlin Park/Coon Rapids is ranked #15 in the State Class AA top 20 poll in Let’s Play Hockey magazine.
Centennial/Spring Lake Park improves to 18-2 and will host Robbinsdale Cooper/Armstrong on Tuesday.
JV – Centennial Spring Lake Park won 7-0
Team | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Final |
Crookston | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
Centennial/SLP | 2 | 2 | 3 | 7 |
1st Period
4:22 – CSLP – Mia Sutch (Teagan Kulenkamp, Grace Laager)
9:19 – CSLP – Teagan Kulenkamp (Annabelle Buccicone)
2nd Period
0:31 – CSLP – Grace Laager (Teagan Kulenkamp, Brooke Ueland)
6:41 – CSLP – Mia Sutch (Teagan Kulenkamp)
3rd Period
0:46 – CSLP – Maddie Wolter (Alexis Larsen)
4:27 – CSLP – Mia Sutch (Teagan Kulenkamp)
6:20 – Crookston – Jensen Stinar (4) (Parker Strand)
9:34 – CSLP – Annabelle Buccicone (Maddie Wolter)
Goalie | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Total |
Celina DeWandeler – CSLP | 3 | 6 | 4 | 13 |
Kambelle Freije-Crox | 17 | 13 | 13 | 43 |





