sports

RED LAKE FALLS USES HUGE SECOND PERIOD TO DEFEAT CROOKSTON

December 3, 2021

The Crookston Pirates and Red Lake Falls Eagles Boy’s Hockey teams met on Friday night inside the Crookston Sports Center. The Pirates were supposed to open the season against Kittson County Central earlier this week, but it was postponed until Friday, December 10, making this their first game of the season. Red Lake Falls came into the matchup with a few games under their belt, and it showed, as the Eagles came away with the win 11-1, scoring 11 unanswered goals, 8 of which were in the second period.

FIRST PERIOD –

Red Lake Falls controlled the game, but it was Crookston that came out of the gates ready to play. It took only 13 seconds into the season for the Pirates to score their first goal, as Nathan Kelly found the back of the net on a pass from Jack Doda to put Crookston up 1-0. “I hate to say I called it but yesterday at practice I said Kelly was going to score tonight,” said Pirates Head Coach Josh Hardy. “It was a great start, and overall, I thought the first period was great.” Jaren Bailey made a few big stops in the net early to preserve the lead for Crookston, but eventually, the Eagles found the scoreboard on a goal from Gavin Girdler with 8:36 remaining in the period. There wasn’t much action the rest of the period until Alex Longoria went to the penalty box with 3:20 remaining in the period for a roughing call, that put the Eagles on the Power Play. As the Power Play was ending, the Pirates would get called for another penalty giving the Eagles another two minutes with the man advantage. The Pirates would do a nice job on the penalty kill to end the first period and escape still tied at 1-1. Shots on goal in the first period were in favor of Crookston at 10-8.

SECOND PERIOD –

It was all Eagles in the second period as they scored 8 goals to take a 9-1 lead into the third period. Three of them came in the first two minutes of the period, as Evan Girdler scored 11 seconds into the period on the Power Play that carried over from the end of the first period, Carson Erickson followed a minute later with a goal, and Blane Schmitz added another goal with 15:11 remaining in the period giving the Eagles a 4-1 lead. “That’s a very good hockey team that we lined up against tonight,” said Pirates Head Coach Josh Hardy. “They beat us with their speed all night and things just snowballed on us in the second period. We can learn a lot from this game and take the lessons with us moving forward.” The period was filled with multiple penalties and each team had a 5-3 opportunity. Crookston couldn’t capitalize on their chance, but Red Lake Falls did, as Brock Seeger extended the lead to 5-1. Gavin Girdler, Evan Girdler, Blake Brieland, and Ty Kennett each added a goal later in the period to bring the score 9-1 Red Lake Falls.

THIRD PERIOD –

The third period was running time per MSHSL rules as Red Lake Falls was leading by more than 6 goals. The Eagles would add two more goals in the third period from Blake Audette and Dothan Wirth, for a final score of 11-1. Ashtin Fredrickson picked up the win in net for the Eagles, and Jaren Bailey suffered the loss for the Pirates. “I hate losing, but in the grand scheme of things this doesn’t matter a whole lot,” said Pirates Head Coach Josh Hardy. “We have some new faces that are playing big-time minutes and they hopefully were able to realize what they need to do better to compete in a game like this.”

Crookston falls to 0-1 on the season and will be back in action next week on Tuesday night, as they travel to East Grand Forks. The drop of the puck is set for 7:30 p.m. and the game can be heard on KROX with the RiverView Health pregame show at 7:00 p.m.

Red Lake Falls improves to 3-1 on the season and will be back in action on Tuesday night when they host Fargo South/Shanley (N.D).

	1st	2nd	3rd	Total
Red Lake Falls	1	8	2	11
Crookston	1	0	0	1

1st Period
CROX – 00:13 – Nathan Kelly (Jack Doda)
RLF – 8:24 – Gavin Girdler (Carson Erickson, Brock Seeger)

2nd Period
RLF – 0:16 – Even Girdler (Ty Kennett) (PP)
RLF – 1:02 – Carson Erickson (Gavin Girdler, Brock Knott)
RLF – 1:49 – Blane Schmitz (Ty Kennett)
RLF – 4:14 – Brock Seeger (Gavin Girdler)
RLF – 9:58 – Blake Breliand (Ty Kennett)
RLF – 10:11 – Gavin Girdler (Brock Seeger)
RLF – 12:41 – Ty Kennett (Evan Girdler) (PP)
RLF 14:49 – Evan Girdler (Ty Kennett)

3rd Period
RLF – 9:30 – Blake Audette (Brock Seeger) (PP)
RLF – 11:15 – Dothan Worth (Brock Seeger, Blake Audette)