Dan Falloon
Heading into the final stretch of the NorWOSSA season, Muskie girls’ head coach Mel Langtry is a little reserved about the state of his team.
“We’re winning, but it’s not pretty,” he admitted.
The black-and-gold won both games after a lengthy 19-day break, pounding the Sioux Lookout Warriors 9-3 on Friday night before edging the Baudette Bears 2-1 in exhibition action Monday evening in Emo.
But Langtry felt his squad still has adjustments to make—and those fixes would be helpful sooner rather than later.
All five of their remaining games are showdowns for NorWOSSA points, with four of those five against Kenora and Dryden, who are perched above Fort High in the standings.
“I thought we needed a little more energy at times. We were standing around a little bit,” Langtry bemoaned after Monday night’s game.
“We got caught running around in our end a little bit.”
Still, Langtry acknowledged the Bears provide a keen opposition even though the Muskies won all three meetings this season.
“They’re a good battle,” he remarked. “We’ve played them three times and it’s always been within one or two goals.
“They’ve got some good, strong players.”
Baudette opened the scoring when Kalene Krause tapped a centering pass behind Muskie goalie Dana Cridland at 10:24 of the first period.
“In the first, they kind of took it to us,” Langtry conceded. “They’re a quick team and they got on us pretty quick.”
Cridland and her counterpart, Bryna Hanson, held down the fort for well over a period, pacifying both offences until late in the second.
Jillian Langtry notched the controversial equalizer with about 14 seconds left in the period.
The Muskies’ net had been knocked off its moorings after a Baudette rush at the same time Langtry had corralled the puck and was making her way up the ice en route to deking out Hanson to knot the game at 1-1.
The Bears argued, to no avail, that the play should have been whistled dead when the net became dislodged.
“That goal at the end of the second really helped us out,” Coach Langtry said. “We came into the dressing room feeling a little better about ourselves and went from there.
“But it could have went either way.”
Jillian Langtry then struck again for the game-winner midway through the third.
Coach Langtry was thrilled with the play of Cridland, who was thrown into action after scheduled starter Melissa Payne aggravated her sore elbow during warm-ups.
“Our goalie played really well, she kept us in it, I thought,” he said. “That was nice to see.”
Monday’s game was the first of two Emo will host this week. The Muskies will pay another visit there this Friday night (Feb. 12) when Sioux Lookout comes to town at 7:30 p.m.
Fort High then returns to the Ice For Kids Arena the following night (Feb. 13) to entertain the Kenora Broncos at 7:15 p.m.
