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MOUNDS VIEW SCORES LATE AND HOLDS ON TO 2-1 WIN OVER CROOKSTON IN SEASON OPENER

George DeMay took advantage of the mistake in the offensive zone by the Pirates and zoomed up ice before making a pretty fake to draw Crookston’s Noah Dragseth out of the net for a wide-open game-winning goal with 5:50 to play to lift the Mounds View Mustangs to a 2-1 win over the Crookston Pirates Boy’s Hockey team.  

Crookston and Mounds View played evenly for the first 15 minutes of the game but Crookston was caught flat-footed and unable to get off the ice late in the period.  That led to five Mustang shots on goal including the first goal of the night.  With Pirate players scrambling in front of the net Dragseth moved left to try to stop a shot from the right circle from Mound’s Views Jake McAlpine that missed the net and fluttered over DeMay in the left circle.  Dragseth tried to get back to his right, but was unable to do so through is momentum and the congestion around him allowing DeMay to bury the puck into a wide-open net for a 1-0 with 1:08 to go in the first period.  Pirate Coach Josh Hardy said he could feel that goal coming.  “Once you’ve been around long enough you can start to feel when goals are coming,” said Hardy.  “We took a bad step coming into the zone and they hemmed us in.  We had a couple of opportunities to get physical in front of the net and we just didn’t.  Those are easy goals when they can buzz in there, get changes in, and we’re not going to get physical to protect our net.”
Trailing 1-0 the Pirates were able to get to the locker room without any further damage where Hardy said the leaders stepped up.  “Our leaders really stepped up in the locker and were like – hey, it’s early, we have two periods left, we’re not crumbling,” said Hardy. “I was very proud of them for that.  I really didn’t to say much in between periods.”  The pep talked worked effectively as the Pirates came back out and had an even second period with the Mustangs as both teams were held scoreless on nine shots. 

Leading 1-0 Mounds View had an opportunity to put the game away with 5-on-3 powerplay midway through the period when Joey Doda (kneeing) and Jack Doda (roughing) received minor penalties on the same stoppage.  The Pirates killed off the penalty stealing momentum before drawing a penalty of their own as a frustrated Ethan Elmes was called for slashing in the offensive zone giving Crookston their fourth powerplay.  Fifteen seconds in Ben Andringa sent a one-time across the ice to Joey Doda in the left circle and he buried it in the back of the net to tie the game at 1-1 with 7:45 to play.   Coach Hardy discussed his reaction to going down to players through the momentum shift and the goal.  “At that point, I’m thinking – hey we haven’t practiced this yet,” said Hardy.  “We did a nice job not going crazy down there, blocked some shots, Drags made some saves, and we flipped the puck out.  It built some momentum and we were moving our feet, and when we move our feet we draw penalties. They were able right away to boom, boom, boom, move the puck around and found Joey on the backdoor.”   The Pirates continued that momentum pressing forward into the offensive zone before the puck bounced loose to DeMay who raced up the right wall on a breakaway.  The Pirates Noah Kiel raced back to give himself an opportunity to cut DeMay but a slight hesitation move caused Kiel to overskate the play and set DeMay up alone against Dragseth.  DeMay made a hard move towards the left post that was enough to draw Dragseth out of position giving DeMay a wide-open net for his second goal of the night and a 2-1 lead with 5:50 to play.  The Pirates would pull Dragseth with a minute left but were unable to generate much offense before a defensive zone faceoff forced Dragseth back in with 38 secs to play.  The Pirates weren’t able to get the puck out of the zone the rest of the way for the extra skater.  Hardy said he was impressed with his junior goaltender.  “I thought did a really nice job today,” said Hardy.  “He played within himself, he controlled the pace of the game, and he was in position.” 

Mounds View improves to 1-0.  The Pirates fall to 0-1 and will be off until Friday, November 29 when they host Sartell-St. Stephen at 7:30 p.m. 

 

Scoring 1st 2nd 3rd Final
Mounds View 1 0 1 2
CROOKSTON 0 0 1 1


1st Period
1:08 – MV – George Demay (Henry Claridge)

2nd Period
No scoring

3rd Period
7:45 – Crox – Joey Doda (Alex Longoria, Ben Andringa) (PP)
5:50 – MV – George Demay  (unassisted)

Saves 1st 2nd 3rd Final
Luke Ortloff – MV 8 9 7 24
Noah Dragseth – Crox 13 9 10 32
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