Joey Payeur
When it was time to play, the Muskie girls’ hockey team decided playtime was over.
With the sour taste of a 7-4 exhibition loss to the International Falls Broncos here Tuesday night still in their mouths, the black-and-gold came out snorting fire last night in routing the host Kenora Broncos 16-1 in NorWOSSA action.
“The girls decided to come out as hard as they could,” noted Todd Hamilton, who had turned over the head coaching reins for the night to assistant coach Tressa Galusha.
“We know we had played Kenora before, but we wanted to start strong right from the beginning with a new attitude that we’re not going to go and take it easy on them,” he added.
“It’s not fair to the players or to the team. . . .
“Kenora played at well at times and had a few chances to score, but we did end up overwhelming them as we should,” said Hamilton, whose team improved to 5-0 in league play.
The three-time defending NorWOSSA champs jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the first on goals by Kelsey Langtry, Siobhan Mackintosh, Jill Calder (two), and captain Janelle Kaemingh.
Langtry and Kaemingh each got their second goals before Calder completed her hat trick while Jenna Clendenning added a single.
Starr Schott netted the Broncos’ lone goal to make it 9-1 after two periods.
The Muskies then exploded for seven goals in the third.
Annalise (CC) Hayes set up Lauren Hamilton, Hanna LeDrew, and Kaemingh all within a span of five minutes for a 12-1 lead.
She then assisted on Kaemingh’s fourth goal of the night—in between a pair of tallies by Taylor Croswell—before capping the barrage with a goal of her own with 32 seconds left.
Sydney Beck earned the win in goal.
It was a different story Tuesday night as the “Three Musketeers” of the Broncos were the difference in the first of two games in this season’s “Battle of the Border.”
Speedster Amber Tilander had goals on either side of one by Muskie killer Lexi Edwards to make it 3-0 less than nine minutes into the contest.
The Muskies found their footing before the period was over, though, with Hayes and Calder beating Broncos’ goalie Grace Wegner just 12 seconds apart to trim the deficit to 3-2.
Hayes fed Reece McQuaker for the equalizer 1:20 into the second while Muskie rookie goalie Kamryn Sandelovich kept it tied with a spectacular glove save of Edward’s bullet from between the face-off circles.
Lexi Erickson, the third of the Broncos’ dangerous veterans, stripped Abby Plourde of the puck and drilled a short-handed shot that fooled Sandelovich to put the Broncos back in front at 11:24 of the second.
Hayes wasn’t standing for that—going coast-to-coast while beating three defenders and then Wegner with 26 seconds left in the period to make it 4-4.
But the Broncos got goals from Tilander, Edwards, and Gian Auran (power play) in the third to ice the victory.
“We played a team with a lot of speed and we weren’t prepared for that speed,” admitted Hamilton, whose team had 11 wins and two ties in their first 13 games of the season before Tuesday.
“We got better in the second but then we had another lapse in the third,” he noted.
Calder noticed the faster pace of the game compared to what she’s seen in NorWOSSA action so far in her rookie season.
“It’s really an eye-opener how fast [the Falls] moves the puck down the ice,” she remarked.
“But it might be good for us to lose one early in the season so we know what to expect when that happens,” she reasoned.
Cates also was wowed by the Broncos’ tempo.
“They just come at you all at once and they just keep coming,” she noted.
“But games like that are real important to prepare us for NorWOSSA playoffs down the road and OFSAA, too.”
The Muskies play their third game in three nights when they face the St. Thomas Aquinas Saints tonight in Kenora.
Their next home game is against the Dryden Eagles on Dec. 8 at 7 p.m. at the ‘52 Canadians Arena.
