Knights win three of four in Falls

They couldn’t play for real, but the local K of C Knights PeeWee ‘AA’ team caused some real trouble across the river.
Because of the rule limiting the number of tournaments they can take part in during a season, the Knights decided to play against teams participating in a tournament in International Falls last weekend on a purely exhibition basis.
Fort Frances certainly didn’t play like they had nothing on the line, however, as they came out ahead in three of their four games.
Facing the host team in their opening contest, the Knights benefited from a pair of second-period goals to double International Falls 4-2.
Matt Youso (Falls) and Luke Judson (Knights) traded markers before Mitch Cain tallied twice in the middle frame to make it 3-1 for Fort Frances.
After Jon McDonald pulled the Falls to within one late in the period, Cain set up Joe Basaraba in the third for the final margin of victory while T.J. Pocock preserved the win in goal.
A pesky Lake of the Woods squad (Baudette) wouldn’t let the Knights get too far out of range in the local team’s second outing despite an obvious advantage in play favouring Fort Frances.
The Knights outshot Lake of the Woods 31-19, but needed Cain’s game winner with just over a minute to play to escape with the 5-4 win.
Matt DePiero scored twice for Fort Frances, with Judson and Jamie Kaun adding singles.
Andrew Kraft, Michael Piper, Cody Hastargen, and Jaden Chorney replied for Lake of the Woods against Brady Caul.
Then Judson, DePiero, and Blake Wepruk made a victory in the Knights’ third game their personal pet project, supplying all the offence in a 3-1 win over Hermantown.
Jamie Weiss gave Hermantown a 1-0 lead in the second, but DePiero converted a feed from Judson to tie the game later in the period. That was followed by Wepruk cashing in a DePiero pass to make it 2-1 after two periods.
Only 26 seconds into the third, the trio was back to feast on Hermantown yet again, as DePiero turned Wepruk’s set-up into a goal for the insurance marker.
Pocock got the win in goal.
A parade of penalties, which saw the Knights whistled 10 times for infractions as opposed to only twice for Hermantown, proved to be their downfall in losing the rematch 6-5 to the Minnesota contingent.
Hermantown scored five of its six goals on the power play, handing the Knights their first loss against a PeeWee team this season.
Cory Kolquist netted a hat trick for Hermantown while Adam Krause’s second of the game with exactly two minutes to go was the game-winner.
Kurt Peterson had the other goal for the victors, who rained on the parade of DePiero and his fourgoal performance in a losing cause.
Evan McCabe added the other goal for the Knights, who next travel to Morden, Man. this weekend for a nine-team tournament beginning Friday night against the Winkler Flyers.