TWO POWER PLAY GOALS LEAD NORTHFIELD TO 3-1 WIN OVER CROOKSTON GIRL’S HOCKEY

The Northfield Girls Hockey team continues their undefeated ways as they scored once in each period, two on power plays to defeat the visiting Crookston Pirates to exact some revenge on the Pirates who beat Northfield by the same 3-1 score in Thief River Falls last year!

Northfield is led by two seniors who will play Big 10 Division I Women’s Hockey next year, the state’s leading scorer, Ayla Puppe, who is going to the University of Minnesota, and Grace McCoshen, who will attend and play hockey at Ohio State. McCoshen scored twice with assists from Puppe on both goals, and Puppe scored once on an unassisted power play to open the scoring in the first period.

FIRST PERIOD
The first period was a quick, fast-paced 17 minutes with good scoring chances on both sides. Crookston had some good offensive zone time and chances that either missed the net or were stopped by the Raiders goalie, Macy Mueller. Puppe would score the only goal of the period as the Pirates took a penalty six and a half minutes into the game. It took just over a minute for the Raiders superstar to gather up the puck in her end, circle behind her net and fly to center ice, past two Pirate penalty killers, and turn around a Pirate defenseman and in the circle/slot to the left of the Crookston goal snapped off a shot that hit the crossbar and down past Kambelle Freije to give Northfield a 1-0 lead. “We knew we had to contain her,” said Crookston head coach Emily Meye, talking about Puppe, “she has terrific speed, handles the puck well, and a great shot. We just let her walk. When you get a kid like that time and space to try and create something out of nothing, that is exactly what she did.”  Shots were even in the first period at 8-8, and Crookston had one power play chance; although they had some good puck movement, they couldn’t score and trailed 1-0 after the first. “It was fun, fast hockey,” said Meyer, “We told the girls in the locker room that is exactly the kind of game that we want, with tough competition where we know we are the underdogs, and that is the way we want to roll the rest of the season.”

SECOND PERIOD
The second period was near a carbon copy of the first, with good chances by both teams, but both goalies were near their best again. Pirate speedster Taylor Field had numerous grade-A chances but couldn’t convert. Pirates rang one off the pipe but again couldn’t dent the net. Crookston was 0-2 on the power play in the second period, which they worked on all week in practice. “We did a lot of work on the power play last week after a recent drought with it,” said Meyer, “it looked good, but we just couldn’t get anything going. We might have to look at something different to see if we can figure it out.”  With just under four minutes to go in the period, McCoshen sniped a shot from the left circle, slot area, past the glove of Freije to make it 2-0 after Puppe found McCoshen, who finished off the play for an important goal for the Raiders.  Crookston outshot Northfield 12-10 in the second period. “Their goalie had our players psyched out as we were trying to go high and missed the net, so we shot it over the net a few times,” said Meyer. “That was the open area. There were some missed nets and a couple of posts here and there. I know we wanted to get one in the period to either tie it or cut their lead in half after they scored their second goal.”

THIRD PERIOD
Crookston had a title midway through the season and at the Warroad Tournament of the ‘come-back-kids’! This is from their play in the third period. “I was hoping for a little more magic in the third period,” said Coach Meyer, “we were pumped to get that goose egg off the scoreboard. If we could have popped one early, more would have fallen. We took many shots and had many good things happening, but we couldn’t score!” Northfield did score on another power play five and a half minutes into the period, and it was McCoshen again scoring on a rebound off a Puppe shot in the circle to the left of Freije to make it 3-0. The two power plays Northfield scored in the game matched the total that the Pirates’ excellent penalty kill has given up this season. It was still 3-0 when Crookston would get a five-on-three power play for about 50 seconds with three and a half minutes left in the game. Crookston called a time-out. “We told our players to believe in themselves, and if we could pop one in on the five on three, we’d still have time on a five on four and get back into it,” said Meyer. The Pirates had some excellent pressure during the whole time on the power play(s), plays in the offensive zone, defensemen carrying in deep, and shots were either blocked (a lot of them in the game) or stopped by Mueller, who was going for her seventh shutout of the season. After the Pirates couldn’t convert on the extra man advantage, they did score with 56 seconds left in the game when the Pirates’ leading scorer, eighth grader Jocelyn Field, scored her third goal of the season as she jumped on a rebound and slapped it by before the goalie could get over to make it 3-1. The goal came as the Pirates had pulled their goalie, which they did the rest of the game, and Northfield let some long shots go that missed the net and were icings instead, but time ran out, and it ended up 3-1 with Northfield, the victors on their home ice. “Northfield had a lot of talent,” said Meyer. “A lot of speed, a lot of kids that had excellent hands, which we knew we had to disrupt, and we fell short of that. We have to look at the positives because there are a lot of them out there. We need to get refreshed and come back tomorrow against another good opponent. Knowing that we can’t hang out heads for too long, Kambelle Freije is in the locker room saying we have a big one tomorrow night.”

Northfield was scoring about seven goals a game coming into tonight, but Freije did hold them to three tonight with two power plays! With her goal tonight, Jocelyn Field has three goals and ten assists for 13 points, while Puppe for Northfield leads the state in scoring with 38 goals and 29 helps for 67 points, averaging just over four points a game!!

Crookston is now 11-5-1 on the season and will be at Gentry Academy in Vadnais Heights tomorrow evening with JV at 5:00 PM and varsity at 7:00 PM. The varsity game will be on KROX RADIO starting at 6:30 PM. Crookston will be back home for three games next week: Monday hosting Thief River Falls, Thursday hosting East Grand Forks, and next Saturday will host Dodge County, all at the Crookston Sports Center. Northfield is 16-0 on the year, and they will host Benilde-St—Margaret’s on Tuesday.
JV – Northfield won 5-4

1st Period
7:54 – Northfield – Ayla Puppe unassisted (PP)

2nd Period
13:17 – Northfield – Grace McCoshen (Ayla Puppe)

3rd Period
5:31- Northfield – Grace McCoshen (Ayla Puppe) (PP)
16:04 – CROX – Jocelyn Field (3) unassisted