CROOKSTON GIRL’S HOCKEY SCORES 10 TIMES IN VICTORY AGAINST WAHPETON-BRECKENRIDGE

The Crookston Pirate Girls Hockey team scored hat tricks from two defensemen, Ashlyn Bailey and Reese Swanson, to lead the Pirates to a 10-4 win over the Breckenridge-Wahpeton Blades in a first meeting between the two teams at Stern Arena in Wahpeton North Dakota.

First period
Crookston went 0-for-6 on the power play in Friday night’s win over Thief River Falls 5-1 in the season opener. Monday night, they came out and scored the first goal of the game on a Bailey power play. She received a nice pass behind the net of the Blades de Brekken Tull, and after just four minutes Crookston was leading 1-0.
The Blades tied the game about a minute and a half later when Reagan Wohlers made a great play in the Pirates’ zone, stealing a puck and snapping a quick shot to score.
With just under four minutes left in the period, Crookston’s junior defenseman Swanson circled behind the Blades net, turned around in the crease area and beat Blades goaltender Kolle Schuler, and Crookston led 2-1.
With 32 seconds left in the period, Reagan Wohlers scored her second goal, and it was much like her first as she again found herself alone in front of Magsam and fired a high, hard shot to equalize at 2-2. It looked like the period would end tied at two, except Wahpeton-Breckenridge iced the puck with 22 seconds left and Crookston would get the face-off in the Blades’ zone. Brynley Coleman would earn the draw against Tull, who fed Addie Fee, who took a shot and the rebound came to Coleman, who found the back of the net with nine seconds left in the period, and Crookston led 3-2 after the first 17 minutes. “Yeah we had a lot of chances to score which was good because we scored three times,” Crookston head coach Emily Meyer said. “We gave them good chances. They have good players, with a senior first line, and we let number 3 come off twice for scoring, so we wanted to correct that for the second half and be a bit more consistent and consistent too.

Second period
No one scored in the first 12½ minutes of the period, but not for lack of chances. Freshmen Taylor Field, which has a lot of speed, were alone in a breakaway and stopped. A minute later, Swanson and Fee got into a two-on-one, and Swanson slipped a nice pass to Fee, who was also stuffed by Schuler. Wahpeton-Breckenridge also had a few solo chances, but Magsam handled them with aplomb. Field used that speed again with a breakaway, and this time it solved Schuler, and the Sacred Heart product scored his first career goal for the Pirates and gave Crookston a 4-2 lead. With two and a half minutes left in the period, Bailey, another rookie, added his second goal of the game and Crookston led 5-2 after two periods. “We have good team speed,” Meyer said, “Ashlyn and Taylor showed that in those two goals. It felt like a more open period, with both teams going toe to toe and putting a lot of pressure on both goalkeepers. We had a great period on both sides of the puck with a good offense and Kailee played well in net, blocking them.

Third period
Crookston came out strong in the period while scoring the first three goals in the opening nine and a half minutes, with rookie Emma LaPlante scoring her second goal in two games with a fine assist from Tull. A minute later, Bailey found room on the right side where she found the back of the net to make it 7-2. Fee added the eighth pirate goal of the game when she made a great play coming out of the corner with the puck, was behind the Blades goal and slid it through Schuler’s left skate for the second shorthanded pirate goal. , and it was 8-2, forcing race time.
Running time lasted minutes as Wahpeton-Breckenridge’s Kennedy Schuler broke away for a breakaway and scored to make it 8-3 with five and a half minutes remaining. Crookston’s Swanson would score twice in eight
seconds on similar shots from the slot area in the last minute to make it 10-3. Not to be denied, Wohlers would get his hat trick, scoring on a rebound with 26 seconds left, and it ended 10-4 with the Pirates going 2-0 on the season. “Yeah, it’s good to have the victory on the road, and we played pretty well,” Meyer said. “We got a power-play goal and a couple more shorthanded goals, which was good because we didn’t work on either of them that much. It was good to see all the lines score, and our defenders keep scoring. It was a win, and we will continue to build and improve with every game.

The Pirates will be home for the first time this year when they host Fort Frances, Ontario at the Crookston Sports Center on Saturday at NOON, which will also be on KROX RADIO at 11:30 a.m. will be broadcast live on KROX. app too. “We’ve never played against them before,” Meyer said. “They were looking to play more Minnesota teams, and I think they’ve scheduled a few this year. They’ll be in East Grand Forks Friday night, then home Saturday.

Rating

1st

2nd

3rd

Final

CROOKSTON

3

2

5

ten

Breckenridge-Wahp

2

0

2

4


1st Period
4:13 – Crookston – Ashlyn Bailey (1) (Brekken Tull) (PP)
5:50 – BW – Reagan Wohlers unassisted
13:15 – Crookston – Reese Swanson (2) unassisted (SH)
16:28 – BW – Reagan Wohlers unassisted
16:59 – Crookston – Brynlee Coleman (2) (Addie Fee, Brekken Tull)

2nD Period
4:28 – Crookston – Taylor Field (1) unassisted
14:28 – Crookston – Ashlyn Bailey (2) unassisted

3rd Period
3:54 – Crookston – Emma LaPlante (2) (Brekken Tull)
5:07 – Crookston – Ashlyn Bailey (3) (Addie Fresh)
9:37 – Crookston- Addie Fee (1) unassisted (SH)
11:23 – BW – Kennedy Schuler unassisted
16:09 – Crookston – Reese Swanson (3) (Jenna Seaver, Cassie Solheim)
16:18 – Crookston – Reese Swanson (4) (Emma LaPlante)
16:34 – BW – Reagan Wohlers (Karsyn Neppl, Kennedy Schuler)

Save

1st

2nd

3rd

Final

Kailee Magsam-Crookston

3

5

seven

15

Kolle Schuler-Breckenridge-W

11

16

22

49

Catherine J. Martinez