Pirate Girls Hockey explodes for seven goals, two by Parker Strand in win at TRF

The Crookston Pirates Girl’s Hockey team scored six unanswered goals including four in the third period to pull away from Thief River Falls 7-1 in a Section 8A game at the Ralph Engelstad Arena in Thief River Falls. The Pirates evened the season series with the Prowlers, who had beaten Crookston on November 12 in Crookston 2-1.

FIRST PERIOD
Both teams played even through the first period of play, with both getting some scoring chances, but both goalies were tough in the period, turning away some shots. However, many of the grade-A chances the teams had never really were on goal. Crookston hadn’t played since December 28 when they beat Albert Lea 3-1. Crookston would score the only goal in the first frame, and it was a diagrammed play. Emma LaPlante took the face-off to the left of the Thief River Falls goal, and her main job was to get a clean draw to her linemate, Parker Strand. That’s exactly what happened, and Strand snapped a one-timer past McKenna Carr, the Prowler’s goaltender. “Emma won the faceoff, and it came right to me, and I shot, and it went in,” said Strand, “We’ve worked on that in practice, and I’ve been trying to keep my head up more and looking at the net before I shoot and hopefully the goals will continue.“ Both teams had penalties late in the period with Thief River Falls skating off theirs and Crookston was whistled for a tripping call with 7.5 seconds left in the period and the Prowlers would have almost a full power play to start the second period. Shots were even in the period at nine each. “I thought we came out fairly strong in the first period,” said Crookston head coach Reed Olson, “It was good to see Parker get that first goal, which gave us some more energy.”

SECOND PERIOD
Crookston managed to skate off the 1:53 penalty to start the period, but they drew the only penalty of the period a couple of minutes later, and this time, Thief River Falls took 14 seconds to score on the power play. The Prowlers set up in the Crookston zone, fired a shot at Pirate goalie Kambelle Freije, and the rebound went right to the Thief River Falls leading scorer, sophomore Lila Dalager, who was about seven feet to the left of Freij,e and Dalager snapped off a 47-mph whistler to tie the game at 1-1 just short of five minutes into the second period. “That was a heck of a shot by their player,” said Olson, “not much Kambelle could do.” Maybe the most important goal of the game came 36 seconds later and was a gift goal for Crookston. “Yeah, we had a scramble going on, and the puck was sent toward their net,” said Olson. “The puck hit Jensen (Stinar) and went in. Those are the kind you love, just having it go in off your equipment and in the goal. Jensen has been playing some good hockey lately, and we want to see her keep it up.” With Stinar’s goal, Crookston was up 2-1. With just under six minutes left in the period, Pirate defenseman Ashlyn Bailey received a pass at the blue line from Jocelyn Field, and Bailey’s shot found its way past Carr for Bailey’s fifth goal of the year and gave Crookston a 3-1 lead after two periods. “It was a nice low shot by Ashlyn, and it was good to see her getting the puck through traffic and on the net, and it paid off there,” said Olson, “I thought our defensive play was better tonight with some nice passing not only in our end but all over the ice.”

THIRD PERIOD
Thief River Falls goalie Carr came into the game with a 2.14 goals-against average. Crookston pounced on her and the Prowlers in the third period. Another Pirate defenseman, freshman Adley Vigness put a shot on net, and Carr was screened a bit in front, the puck went in for Vignes’s third goal of the year, and she scored two games in a row with Crookston leading 4-1 just under four minutes into the final period. Just over two and a half minutes later, Crookston scored again. With a mad scramble in front of the Prowler’s net, Crookston had a couple of in shots on the goal, and finally, Emma LaPlante tucked in the second rebound on a power play to make it 5-1 with 10 and a half minutes to go in the game. “We have said if we get a lot more shots on goals on the net, we’ll get some more chances on rebounds and score more goals like we did tonight,” said Coach Olson. Crookston would score just over a minute later, with Field coming into the Thief River Falls zone with a two-on-one with Addison Fee. Field made a great pass to Fee, who wristed a top-shelf shot that beat Carr for Fee’s 10th goal of the season and made it 6-1. Six different players scored for the Pirates up to this point with Field having four assists. Strand would score her second goal of the game with just over a minute to go in the game. “I was in front of their crease area, and eighth grader Keely Garrett made a nice pass to me and looked up and shot that beat their goalie,” said Strand.
Two goals for Strand in the game and five on the season. “It’s good to see their line scoring some goals now,” said Coach Olson. “When they do that, it really picks up the whole team and shows the other teams that we have more than one line.”

Crookston improves to 9-4-1 on the season and will play another Section 8A game Tuesday night at East Grand Forks. The Pirates beat the Green Wave 2-1 on December 16 in Crookston. They will play the Green Wave again in six days on Monday, January 13 in Crookston. Between the two East Grand Forks games, the Pirates will host Warroad on Thursday for a 6:30 PM game at the Crookston Sports Center. “This is Section 8A week for sure,” said Olson, “this is a good start to the week for us, and we just have to continue this type of play all week.”
Thief River Falls drops to 7-6 on the season, and they will host Fergus Falls on Friday.
JV – Thief River Falls won 4-1

1st Period
9:57 – Crookston – Parker Strand (4) (Emma LaPlante)

2nd Period
4:41 – TRF – Lila Dalager (Marley Anderson, Kali Knutson) (PP)
5:17 – Crookston – Jensen Stinar (2) (Logan Brekken)
11:02 – Crookston – Ashlyn Bailey (5) (Jocelyn Field)

3rd Period
3:49 – Crookston – Adley Vigness (2) (Jocelyn Field)
6:29 – Crookston – Emma LaPlante (8) (Addison Fee, Jocelyn Field) (PP)
7:42 – Crookston – Addison Fee (10) (Jocleyn Field, Adley Verwest)
15:58 – Crookston – Parker Strand (5) (Jensen Stinar, Ava Martin)

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