The Crookston Pirate Boys Hockey team suffered its first loss of the season as they were shutout in a 2-0 loss to the Northern Lakes Lightning at the Crookston Sports Center.
FIRST PERIOD
Crookston came out on fire in the first period, hitting the Lightning every chance they could and getting some shot attempts on the goalkeeper. After about 5 minutes in game time, however, Northern Lakes began to adjust. They started to adjust to the Pirate onslaught by picking up the intensity, and started laying the lumber even harder on the Pirates. Parker Kelly came to play, though, and stepped up big, making clutch save after clutch save to keep the game scoreless. However, the Lightning began to prevent Crookston from being able to clear it out from their own zone, and eventually, at 12:57, a mishap behind the net left Parker Fulton all alone, and he put it in the net to put Northern Lakes up 1-0. Crookston went on the power play with 2:40 left in the period, but came up empty, and the period ended with the Lightning up 1-0
SECOND PERIOD
At the start of the second period, Northern Lakes continued their push. Their main success was faceoffs, seemingly winning every one of them from the start of the second period until the end of the game. In this period, they were able to score much faster, this time on a brilliant deflection by Easton Anderson right in front of the net, putting the Lightning up 2-0. The Lightning would control the puck possession battle for the majority of the period, but the Pirates did a great job of laying out to block shots, as well as knocking the puck off of sticks to force the Lightning to reset. However, this came at the cost of very few shots on goal. Crookston found a surge in the final 2:20, where 5 of the 7 saves made by Sam Suja of the Lightning were made, but they could not find the twine, and Crookston trailed 2-0 at the end of the second period.
THIRD PERIOD
The third period went by a lot faster than the first two, until the final few minutes. Both teams began to possess the puck relatively evenly, and get some pretty decent looks on net. Crookston started on the power play after a tripping call as time expired in the 2nd period, but could not score. Early in the period, Garrett Fischer had a breakaway attempt that was stuffed by Suja, and Parker Kelly also did a great job stopping two breakaway attempts. In the middle of the period, the intensity seemed to die down. Then, with 3:36 remaining in the game, a Tate Hamre shot was stopped by Suja. Hamre then slashed at the goaltender’s pad, leading to an altercation, keeping Hamre out for the rest of the game. No one scored in the period, giving Northern Lakes a 2-0 win.
Pirate Head Coach Josh Hardy praised his team for a valiant effort. “I thought we played great” said Hardy, ” it was a good experience for us to go against a big team like this and realize that some of the stuff that works well against other opponents doesn’t work against a good team like this, and that’s really important for our guys to learn.”
Crookston drops to 3-1 on the year and will host Bagley/Fosston on Monday in a Section 8A matchup. Northern Lakes improves to 4-1 on the year.
Team | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Final |
Northern Lakes | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
Crookston | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
1st Period
12:57 – NL – Parker Fulton (Finn Fogarty)
2nd Period
4:07 – NL – Easton Anderson (Wyatt Balmer)
3rd Period
No scoring
Goalie | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Total |
Parker Kelly- Crox | 13 | 11 | 10 | 34 |
Sam Suja- NL | 6 | 7 | 7 | 20 |