Thief River Falls was trailing 2-1 about halfway through the second period when they rallied back for two goals in the second to regain a 3-2 lead and added three goals in the third, including an open net goal to defeat an inspired Crookston Pirate team 6-3 despite 50 saves from Crookston goalie Jaren Bailey at the Crookston Sports Center.
The Prowlers struck quickly, with Jaxon Brouse scoring his first goal of the season a minute and a half into the game. Thief River Falls defenseman Alex Von Holtum put a wrist shot right on the net that Bailey made the save, and the rebound shot out to his left directly to Brouse, who wrapped it home for the 1-0 lead for the Prowlers. Crookston only had four shots on net, one point-blank from Longoria near the period end and another that missed the net that was close to a Grade A chance. “You know it was two and a half or three weeks ago that they trounced us 9-1 and come back tonight and play right with one of the top hockey teams around,” said Crookston head coach Josh Hardy.
Crookston would take their first and only lead of the game with their leading scorer, Jack Doda, scoring two short-handed goals in four and a half minutes. The first was a steal in the Prowlers zone. Doda sped around the Thief River Falls net and was trying to stuff it to the left of Brett Holmer, the Prowlers goalie who went across to get his pad down and kicked it out and right back on Doda’s stick, who snapped it in for the ‘shortie’ and cut the Thief River Falls lead in half at 2-1. The penalty the Pirates were serving was a bench penalty on Crookston coach Hardy, who was arguing a previous non-call from the officials who teed him up. It lit up the Pirates and resulted in Doda’s 10th goal of the year. “Yeah, Jack bailed me out on that bench minor,” said Hardy, “Kadin Edwards told me on the bench that he thought it was the most tactical bench penalty I’ve ever seen. You get the penalty, and we score!” Then over four minutes later, on another Thief River Falls penalty, Doda blocked a Prowler dump-in from the blue line, bounced out to center ice where he picked it up, came in on a breakaway, and snapped a shot upper shelf on the glove side goal number 11 on the season and his third shorthanded goal in two nights.” Yeah, three shorties in two nights,” said Hardy, “that’s something. Getting Alex (Longoria) back has and will continue to help Jack, and the other win, Carter (Trudeau) missed the first six games of the year and is just getting acclimated, and they’ve looked together these two games.” After Doda’s second goal, Thief River Falls was still on the power play. Brouse would score again on another rebound off Isaiah Villarrel’s shot, and with just over seven minutes left in the second period, Thief River Falls tied it a 2-2. The two Doda goals must have woken up the Prowlers again because they were all over the Pirates buzzing all over the place. Ringing a pipe off the right pipe and a couple of minutes later rang one off the left pipe, plus Max Arlt was stopped on a breakaway by Bailey. Villarrel scored with just over three minutes to go in the period when he got the puck to the left side of Bailey and an open shot but fanned on it. With Bailey down, Villareal still had possession and was able to get it by Bailey, and the Prowlers went into the locker room with a 3-2 lead. “You know, I didn’t have to say much at all to our players,” said Hardy, “I believe we’ve taken some huge strides on the ice this year, but it’s in the locker room like after the second period, they were saying all the right things, saying what my role was and what to do. We need to backcheck and really had it figured out, which is a credit to our leadership and a good job of controlling our locker room and, more importantly, making sure everybody stays on the positive. We have seniors out there that aren’t even playing telling our players coming back to the bench with their heads down, and telling them that you’re better than that, keep your head up, and that say’s a lot about this group.”
Thief River Falls leading scorer Brendan Bottem would give the Prowlers their biggest lead of the game about halfway through the third period, tipping in a shot from the point by Tucker Howe and a 4-2 lead. The Pirates would make a bad pass out of their end and ended up feeding the Prowler blueline, this time Jace Erickson, who skated in a bit and blistered a shot past Bailey, and now it was 5-2 Prowler lead. The Pirates would respond as their top line ended up scoring all three goals in the game, with Longoria the recipient of nice work by Trudeau, who tipped the puck toward the back of the Thief River Falls net, and Doda had it to the left and back and sent a perfect pass to Longoria busting up the slot and slammed a shot that Holmer got a piece of but it trickled in to cut the lead to 5-3 with 4:20 to go in the game. “Having Alex back has really solidified our top line for sure,” said Hardy. Longoria had two goals and two assists last night in the Pirate’s first win of the season in a 7-4 at Park Rapids. Doda had three goals and three assists last night, and Trudeau had a goal and an assist. The top unit was involved in all 10 goals scored last night and tonight!!! Crookston pulled their goalie with two and a half minutes to go, and Thief River Falls Morgan Rude got a loose puck at center and was in on a break and an easy open net goal to make it a 6-3 win for the Prowlers. The Prowlers outshot Crookston 56-15 in the game. “Yeah, we gave them some shots,” said Hardy, “they have some nice defensemen that can hammer the puck and get their forwards in there, and they can all rip the puck, but Jaren was just outstanding. It’s too bad we couldn’t have gotten him a win. We’ll take some more of the good things from tonight along with last night and hopefully keep it going.”
Crookston is 1-9-1 and will be at Bemidji on Tuesday. Thief River Falls improves to 4-7 and will host Lake of the Woods on Tuesday.
JV – Thief River Falls won 7-3
1st | 2nd | 3rd | Total | |
Thief River Falls | 1 | 2 | 3 | 6 |
CROOKSTON | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
1st Period
1:32 – TRF – Jaxon Brouse (Alex Van Holtum, Tyson Loeffler)
2nd Period
4:27 – Crox – (SH) – Jack Doda (10) (Unassisted)
8:54 – Crox – (SH) – Jack Doda (11) (Unassisted)
9:46 – TRF – (PP) – Jaxon Brouse (Isaiah Villarreal)
13:58 – TRF – Isaiah Villarreal (Jaxon Brouse)
3rd Period
7:21 – TRF – Brendan Bottem (Tucker Howe)
11:14 TRF – Jace Erickson (Unassisted)
12:40 – Crox – Alex Longoria (3) (Jack Doda, Carter Trudeau)
15:01 – TRF – Morgan Rude (Brady Skeim) (Empty Net)
Saves | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Final |
Brett Holmer – TRF | 4 | 4 | 4 | 12 |
Jaren Bailey – Crox | 12 | 15 | 23 | 50 |