Sartell-Sauk Rapids – 2, Alexandria – 1
This was the game for first place in the conference. For some reason, the rules of hockey were changed for this game . . . our Cardinals only got to use four skaters throughout??
But more about that later . . .
[A re-uniting of past and current announcers . . . ]
[The JV game . . . I saw about the final 2/3’s of the game.]
[In a nutshell, I thought we were outstanding. I can see why we won the Hastings tournament. We’re the first JV team I can recall that plays three lines. We passed well, always seemed to have players in position for rebounds, and were always looking for cutters going toward the goal. Good for us!]
[The varsity warming up . . . ]
[And play begins . . . ]
[Go back to the beginning as a refresher. Here’s our first (and only) goal by Mari Wosepka (18). It was shorthanded . . . because we were always shorthanded! This goal was in the 2nd period and gave us a 1 – 0 lead. Amazing, as we had 3 penalties in the 1st period and 4 in the 2nd (so we were shorthanded over half of the period.]
[Mari in on some more action.]
[But their big defense rode us away all game . . . ]
[Two Cardinals v. five Stormin’ Sabres, not numbers made for success.]
[Here Sam Kilmek (37) at least got off a clean shot, but hit the goalie dead center.]
[Kristin Trosvig (15) commiserates with a teammate.]
[Is that Mari again?]
[Cardinal schmushed on the boards. Kind of a metaphor for the whole game. The Cards just were too tired in the 3rd, and the Stormin’ Sabres finally scored a power player and then got the game winner late in the game – final 2 – 1. Amy Jost played great in goal and kept us in the game. I was reminded that those guys have won the last four conference titles, so the Cards really wanted this one. They are a class AA team, however, and that makes it tough – Sartell has a population of 17,000 and Sauk Rapids 13,000, so they are drawing from a base more than twice that of Alex. At game’s end, Coach Hovel could barely contain himself in his radio interview, saying they got all the calls and we got none. Their fans, and they had a lot of them, called for penalties on every incidental contact – they must realize it works? We won earlier at their place, and I’m not saying we could have won this one, but playing shorthanded so much it was very difficult. ]
I sat at the game with The Voice who was monitoring the score of the girls’ basketball game against Brainerd taking place simultaneously across town. He reported the Cards had 53 points at the half! Whoa, we haven’t been scoring that many in entire games lately. The next morning I saw Mark Nelsen, retired cross-country coach, at the gym – he was at the game, said Kendall hit her first five 3-point attempts and had 19 points at the half. The Cards, naturally, won big. When I got home from the hockey game, I turned on Gopher women’s basketball. They were at Illinois and Carly Wagner was shooting free throws. The announcers said she ‘only’ had 13 points. Then Rachel Banham missed back-to-back open 3’s. I assumed the Gophers were losing. Then they gave the score – the Gophers had 106, with 5 minutes left in the game (they scored no more). A big win – Banham had 39 points, matching her career high, and was 10 – 15 on 3’s! The team had 19 3’s, matching the conference record!
A puck is a hard rubber disc that hockey players strike when they can’t hit one another. ~
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