What did the Crookston Pirate Girl’s Hockey team work on the last six days since their 1-1 overtime tie with East Grand Forks that ended the regular season? “We worked a lot on our power play, switching some people, and we did some good things in practice, and we’re hoping they carry over into a real game,” said Emily Meyer, Crookston head coach in a pre-game conversation! Well, it worked!! Crookston almost matched their total power plays for the year when they scored three power-play goals in the first two periods and went on to a 4-1 win over the East Grand Forks Green Wave in a Section 8A Tournament semi-final game in East Grand Forks. The win sends the Pirates to the Section 8A Championship on Thursday night against the Warroad Warriors, the #1 team in Minnesota Class A, who beat Thief River Falls 9-1 in the other semi-final game. Not one Crookston player has ever played in a Section 8A Championship. “I’ve never made it past the first round,” said senior captain Rylee Solheim.
Crookston was the number two seed for the Tournament, East Grand Forks was the number three seed, so Crookston was the home team on the scoreboard, but with the Section semi’s and final being played in East Grand Forks, the Green Wave had the ice advantage. It looked like it helped as the Green Wave scored 49 seconds into the period when Brooke Schultz grabbed a juicy rebound in front of the Crookston net and put it into an open right side of Pirate goalie Kailee Magsam and a 1-0 East Grand Forks lead and the popcorn, taco in a bag people were settling into their seats. “We were rattled just a little bit,” said Coach Meyer, “I told the line that was out there to just shake it off, you have a lot of teammates that are there to pick you up. We didn’t let it get to us.”  East Grand Forks took the first penalty, and it took Crookston 18 seconds when Ashlyn Bailey, the Pirate eighth-grader who has been out of the lineup with a shoulder injury for the past three games, used her speed picking up a loose puck near center ice and went ‘coast to coast’ and flipped a backhander past the glove of the Green Wave goalie, Ashley Corbett to tie the game at 1-1.  13 seconds after the Pirates tied it up on the power play, East Grand Forks drew another penalty and this time it took Crookston’s other power-play unit 56 seconds and senior captain, Rylee Solheim scored in close to make it 2-1 in favor of Crookston. “I was in around their net when Addie (Fee) shot a puck, and it went wide and to Reese (Swanson) and put in front, and I was able to tip it by their goalie,” said Solheim. “It was good to see both our power play groups score goals after the work we did in practice this week.” Crookston wouldn’t quit, and they scored with 36 seconds to go in the period when Morgan Nelson received a pass from Cassie Solheim and came into the Green zone on a two on one with Brynley Coleman. Nelson used her teammate as a decoy, saw some opening to the far side of the goal, and snapped a shot top shelf, and it was 3-1 Crookston after one period of play. “It was a great period of hockey for us after giving up that first goal. I think we were a little nervous to start, but their goal really woke us up, and I thought we played great hockey the rest of the period. Two power plays goal really got us pumped up,” said Meyer, “I told our girl’s to keep it going, don’t change anything. Keep aggressive, stay on top of them and not only protect the lead but let’s expand it. Just go out there and have some fun with it. When we try to do the x and o’s of the whole thing, we put them in a small box, so we just them to go out there and move the puck and shoot the put, and it worked so far.”
East Grand Forks would draw another penalty early in the second period, and Crookston made them pay again just over a minute into the extra man. Fee was in the circle to the right of the East Grand Forks goal and was fed a pass from the blue line by Cassie Solheim, and Fee wristed a solid shot to the Green Wave goal and bounced off Rylee Solheim into the net for their third power-play goal. “I have to give credit to Addie, who had a nice shot, and it happened to hit me and went in,” said Rylee Solheim. The three power-play goals are close to matching the Pirates TOTAL for the season!!! About five minutes later, Crookston would have two penalties whistled on them simultaneously, Bailey went off for tripping. Before the whistle was blown, Swanson took a checking penalty, and Crookston was skating shorthanded five on three for two minutes!! The Pirate penalty-killing units did a great job of keeping East Grand Forks at bay, although Kendra Emery, the East Grand Forks senior captain, and leading scorer, first hit the pipe to the left of Magsam and on the same shift hit the pipe on the right side but did not score. Magsam also made some great saves on that situation, and the Pirates skated it off. “Yeah, our penalty killers did a fantastic job of clearing the pucks on most of that five on three,” said Meyer, “our defenseman stood them up in our end, and our forechecking was outstanding, taking time away from them. That was a big two minutes for us, and with seven minutes to go in the period and down 4-1, I think they got a little deflated after that. ” The period did end with Crookston leading 4-1, the most significant lead either team had in any of the previous three times they played East Grand Forks.
The third period would have no scoring, with each team having some good opportunities in close but either missing the net or had it knocked away by the goaltenders. “We didn’t want to go into a defensive shell in the period,” said Meyer, “but the message was the same as the second, go out, have fun, pass it around and get some shots and let’s put them away!” East Grand Forks ran into some more penalty problems in the early part of the third period, but this time they held Crookston scoreless in two power-play attempts that were back to back. The first penalty was just over two minutes into the period, and when they skated that off, the Green Wave took another penalty 11 seconds later! The good part for Crookston was they were buzzing all over the ice, forcing the Green Wave into several icings and reaching, which in turn caused the penalties. Crookston would take a penalty with six minutes to go in the game. Still, again Crookston was able to skate it off, and the result was nobody scored, and the Pirates won the season series with East Grand Forks 2-1-1, with the second win being for the Section 8A semi-finals 4-1 over the Green Wave. Crookston outshot East Grand Forks 32-17, with Magsam registering 16 saves. “Kailee played a heck of a game,” said Meyer, “kudos to her as she really works hard, and she just wants to keep it going, which is what all the girls wanted. They’ve written a pretty good story, and they just want it to end well, which makes me so proud.”
The story will continue on Thursday in East Grand Forks when the Pirates will take on the #1 seeded Warroad Warriors, who are also ranked #1 in Minnesota Class A and favorites to win the state title, but Crookston, although respecting the prowess of Warroad, are glad to meet them in a winner takes it all with the State Tournament the prize!! Game time is slated for 7:00 PM at the East Grand Forks Civic Center.
Crookston improves to 15-8-2 while East Grand Forks finishes their season with a 6-14-1 record.
| 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Total | |
| East Grand Forks | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| CROOKSTON | 3 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
1st Period
:49 – EGF – Blake Schultz (Kara Ellis)
7:00 – Crox – Ashlyn Bailey (6) unassisted
8:09 – Crox – Rylee Solheim (7) (Reese Swanson, Addie Fee)
16:24 – Crox – Morgan Nelson (12) (Cassie Solheim)
2nd Period
11:25 – Crox – Rylee Solheim (8) Addie Fee, Cassie Solheim)
3rd Period
No scoringÂ
| Saves | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Final |
| Ashley Corbett – EGF | 9 | 10 | 9 | 28 |
| Kailee Magsam – Crox | 6 | 7 | 3 | 16 |
