Dillynn Wallace scored her second goal in as many nights, but it wasn’t enough at the Crookston Pirate Girl’s Hockey team fell 3-1 to the Prairie Center Blue Devils in a game played at the Crookston Sports Center.
The Pirates didn’t get a whole lot going offensively in the first period as when they did gain zone time they had a hard time maintaining possession and were unable to get a shot on goal. “I didn’t think we played to bad on the offensive end, we just don’t get the puck to the net,” said Pirate coach Tim Moe. “We played well defensively and our centers were fantastic today.” The Pirates were outshot in the period 13-0.
In the second period, it wouldn’t take long for the third leading scorer in the state to put Prairie Center up 1-0. With 15:24 to go Reece Ritter got the puck to Kylee Hopp who zipped it into the goal of the top of Pirate goaltender Grace Koshney’s pads. “She had 34 goals coming into this game, but I thought we did a pretty good job against her,” said Moe. “Our girls took some confidence out of the first period that they could defend one of the top players in the state, Hopp just started to figure things out a little bit in the second and third.” Wallace, who scored her first career varsity goal Friday, would make it two goals in two games when she tied the game with 13:28 to go in the second. Catherine Tiedeman started the play flipping a puck high off the glass to get it past a Blue Devil defender onto the stick of Aleah Bienek. Bienek brought the puck up ice before backhanding a pass to Wallace standing on the doorstep for her second goal of the season. “As I had talked in Coach’s Corner and during the pre-game, hopefully, the floodgates open up for Dillynn a little bit,” said Moe. “She’s becoming an impact player, figuring out how to play forward a little more. Aleah did a really nice job being patient coming down the goal waiting for something rather than just throwing it to an area and hope and Dillynn went hard to the net.” Neither team would score over the final 13:28 and the score was 1-1 after two periods.
Prairie Center would regain the lead just 31 secs into the third period. Hopp carried the puck through the neutral zone before nearly turning it over coming into the Pirate end. Hopp was able to regain the puck and rip one over Koshney’s glove for a 2-1 lead with 16:29 to go. “She kept trying to go high and Grace knew that,” said Moe. “Grace kept standing there with her gloves up but on the one early in the third we lost her a little bit defensively and she was able to go high on the backhand.” Five minutes later Ritter would put the game away. Hopp held the puck in the right corner and had to fight a pass through pressure back up the wall towards the blue line. The puck got through as far as the half wall where Ritter picked it up, took two strides towards the middle and fired one through Koshney for a 3-1 lead with 11:25 to play. The Pirates would play most of the final 1:20 with an empty net but were unable to draw any closer.
With the loss, the Pirates fall to 4-16-1 and will host Detroit Lakes in the final Section 8A game of the regular season on Tuesday night. Prairie Center improves to 12-11-0.
| Scoring | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Final |
| Prairie Centre | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| CROOKSTON | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
1st Period
No Scoring
2nd Period
15:24 – Prairie Center – Kylee Hopp (Reece Ritter)
13:28 – Crookston – Dillynn Wallace (Aleah Bienek, Catherine Tiedemann)
3rd Period
16:29 – Prairie Center – Kylee Hopp
11:25 – Prairie Center – Reece Ritter (Kylee Hopp)
| Saves | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Total |
| Grace Koshney – Crookston | 13 | 14 | 7 | 34 |
| Mackenzie Och – Prarie Center | 0 | 4 | 2 | 6 |
