Staff
Les Kaun believes if his group of players had as much time together on the ice as their eventual conqueror this past weekend, it might be a whole different story.
The Borderland Rage 16U girls’ hockey team made it to the final of the “Opener” ‘AAA’ tournament in St. Cloud, Mn. before losing 3-0 to the Burggraf Puck Hogs (Moorhead, Mn.)
“The Puck Hogs have had seven practices and two tournaments together,” noted Kaun, whose regional team includes players from Fort Frances to as far away as Superior, Wis.
“We don’t even get to practice and this was our first tournament,” he stressed.
“Burggraf is a good skating team but they attend a hockey academy and pay $3,000 to play hockey,” Kaun added.
“So we’re not that much worse than them.”
The Puck Hogs scored all three of their goals in the first period while outshooting the Rage 20-6 for the game.
Lucy Morgan outduelled Rage goalie Kiya Danielson (Grand Rapids, Mn.) to get the shutout.
“[Burggraf] is a really good skating team and it’s tough to get used to that bigger ice surface down there,” said Kaun.
The Rage’s first chance to be together as a unit came in their first game of the tournament–a 2-1 loss to the Rum River Renegades (Sauk Rapids, Mn.)
Wisconsin native Jerzy Petit had the lone goal.
Burggraf then used a pair of second-period goals to claim a 2-0 victory over the Rage in their round-robin matchup.
Borderland finally got rolling in its third game–dumping the Easton Sting (St. Louis Park, Mn.) by a 6-0 margin.
Muskies’ Kelsey Langtry and Jill Calder bookended tallies by Jessie Katola (Silver Bay, Mn.) and Petit in a four-goal second period that carried the Rage to victory.
Jenee DeGagne, who plays for the St. Thomas Aquinas Saints (Kenora), had the other two goals, scoring in the first and third periods.
Danielson had a 15-save shutout.
Needing a win to have a chance to advance, another St. Thomas Aquinas player came to the rescue in a 2-1 win over the south-central Minnesota region Ice Bucks.
That put Borderland, the Ice Bucks, and the Renegades in a three-way tie for second with five points each (three points for a shutout win, two for a regulation win) behind Burggraf in first.
But the Rage earned the berth in the final based on having allowed only five goals against, compared to eight by the Ice Bucks and 11 by the Renegades.
Borderland next will head to Blaine for a tournament May 5-7, although Kaun will have do some scrounging for players, with many expected to be away for personal reasons that weekend.
