sports

FEE & SWANSON SCORE TO RALLY THE PIRATES PAST ROCK RIDGE

December 8, 2023

The Crookston Pirate Girls’ hockey team rallied with three goals in the last seven minutes of the game to beat Rock Ridge 3-1 in another thriller at the Iron Trails Motor Event Center in Virginia.

Neither team scored in the first period, with the Pirates taking two penalties in the first six minutes. “I’ll credit the first period to a four-hour bus trip, a warm arena, and the penalties to a slow start for us,” said Crookston head coach Emily Meyer, “we needed to get our legs moving, and it took us most of the period to get going.” Rock Ridge did an excellent job of closing the passing lanes in the period and getting the puck out of their end and into the Crookston zone. “They did, ” said Meyer, “they have improved from last year.” Rock Ridge has only one senior in their starting 13 players and two goalies! Both teams had some chances, as Crookston did have a power play about halfway through the period and put on some pressure, but Rock Ridge goalie Nola Kwiatkowski was pretty calm in goal, making eight saves.

The second period started much like the first until one of the state’s leading scorers, junior Natalie Bergman, scored her 16th of the season when she was in the Crookston end, undressed one of the Pirates and point-blank shot on Pirate goalie Kambelle Freije, who made a tremendous save. The rebound rolled back to Bergman, who one-timed it past Freije to make it 1-0 with nine and a half minutes left in the period. “It was a little mistake on our part that allowed them the goal,” said Meyer, “we do such a good job on our end against a good team to having a breakdown on our end, and Kambelle gets peppered with shots, a little bit. That was the most frustrating thing.” The goal for Rock Ridge seemed to spur Crookston the rest of the period as Crookston picked up the pace with a little more offensive zone time. “We need to find a way to play a more we game than my game,” said Meyer, “we just need to find ways to be more consistent.”
Crookston got a power play and finished the second period with the man advantage. They had a couple of grade-A chances that missed the net or were blocked by Kwiatkowski and trailed 1-0 after two periods.

Crookston came into the game averaging 1.86 goals a game while giving up just 1.71 goals a game, and despite that, they had a 4-2-1 record. “Kambelle has played tremendously for us,” said Meyer, “she gives a lot of confidence to the rest of the players in front of her because of her play on the backside. “We talked in the locker room about how disappointing our first two periods were. We go from playing an outstanding game against Warroad and playing so well as a team, and we come into this one thinking we are the better team, we played on our heels, got lazy reaching, and didn’t get to the greasy areas as we’ve been doing. We had to go out and jump on them right away in the third.” Crookston was putting on a lot of offensive zone pressure in the third and put a lot of pressure on Rock Ridge, kept the puck in their zone, and started to jam people in front of the net. It took almost 10 minutes before Crookston struck, with sustained pressure, eighth-grade Pirate defenseman Adley Vigness put the puck in front of the Rock Ridge goal with several Pirates in front, and Addie Fee got her stick on the puck and looped it up and over the goalie to make it 1-1 to put another spark in the Pirates. “Addie’s shot kind of rainbowed over their goalie,” said Meyer, “it gave us a little breathing room and kept us from being nervous, and I’m sure the team was happy as they didn’t want to coach to madder!”
So, it looked like overtime was coming, but Crookston defenseman, senior Reese Swanson, who committed to play college hockey at St. Olaf in the MIAC, said NO to overtime! With the Pirates putting on extensive pressure, Swanson ended up in the right circle and blasted a shot across the goaltending top shelf to give Crookston their first lead 2-1 with 47 seconds to go in the game. “Rock Ridge kind of got in our lanes and made us kind of irritated,” said Swanson. “We started to work as a team more in the third period; moving the puck quicker is how we picked up those three goals. I was going to right on that shot, and it went right where I shot it. I’m playing a lot more defensively this year and not worried how goals or points I score, but it’s nice to score a go-ahead goal like that.”
Rock Ridge called a time-out, pulled their goalie, and Crookston gained control of the puck. Pirate senior Morgan Nelson did not score a goal last year playing defense, and the Pirates were hoping and trying to help Morgan get one to the start of the season. Nelson had the puck just inside the Wolverine’s zone and slid a shot to the open net just wide to the right. “Ashlyn Bailey has been taping Morgan’s stick since last year before every game we’ve played,” said Swanso. “So we decided tonight that should change, and Addie Fee will start taping it from now on.”
Swanson got a chance with the open net seconds later and, from the blue line, put in the middle with 16 seconds left to salt it away with a 3-1 win for the Pirates. “It was a good comeback for us, but we need to get out of the gate immediately and hopefully do that tomorrow.”
Crookston is 5-2-1 on the season and will travel north to International Falls tomorrow with a NOON game, varsity only. The Pirates will be home again on Tuesday night, hosting a good Bemidji team. International Falls is now 0-6-0 on the year after dropping a 4-2 game to Detroit Lakes tonight, with the Lakers scoring three in the third period.
Rock Ridge is now 4-7-1 on the year and will host Detroit Lakes tomorrow afternoon.
JV – Crookston and Rock Ridge played to a 1-1 overtime tie. Alexa Bartrum had the Pirate goal, and Maddy Abrams had 30 saves.

Scoring	1st	2nd	3rd	Final
CROOKSTON	0	0	3	3
Rock Ridge	0	1	0	1

1st Period
No Scoring

2nd Period
7:34 – Rock Ridge – Natalie Bergman unassisted

3rd Period
9:46 – Crookston – Addie Fee (3) (Adley Vigness)
16:13 – Crookston – Reese Swanson (Adley Vigness)
16:44 – Crookston – Reese Swanson unassisted (Open Net)