Girls’ hockey: Pirates blank Prowlers 4-0

Shannon Kaiser scored a pair of goals to lead the Pirate girls’ hockey team to its third consecutive victory Tuesday evening against Thief River Falls. Kaiser recorded her first goal late in the first period to make it 2-0 and added the second midway through the second period as the Pirates recorded 50 shots in a 4-0 win at the Crookston Civic Arena.

Even though Crookston had just four goals on 50 shots, head coach Tim Persson isn't too worried.

"If you look at it compared to last year where we had 60 shots and one goal we're ahead of the game," he said.

Coach Persson was pleased with his team's execution but noted they need to take quicker shots.

"It was a good effort," he said. "We got stronger and stronger as the game went on. Even with three penalties in third period we still had 20 shots on net. I told the girls before the game to try and move the goalie around and shoot for the corners; she's a good goalie. She was putting rebounds out there too but we just couldn't put it in. We need to take quicker shots."

Two of the goals were scored in the corners of the net, while the other two were rebounds.

At the other end of the ice, Pirate goaltender Rachel Biermaier stopped all 11 shots she faced in the shut out victory.

Crookston was awarded the first power play of the night midway through the opening period but failed to score. However, a minute after the Prowlers returned to even strength, Pirate Emily Meyer ripped a shot from the faceoff dot to the right of the Prowler goaltender that found the net. Hayley Epema assisted on the goal with 9:34 left in the period.

The Pirates killed off more than a minute of a Prowler two-man advantage about a minute later and were awarded another power play with just less than three minutes left in the first period. Less than a minute into the man advantage, Kaiser took a pass from Brianna Breiland and scored after following up on her initial shot to make it 2-0 with 2:09 left in the first period.

The shots continued to rain down on the Prowler goaltender but the goals were hard to come by. Finally with 6:47 left in the second period, Kaiser scored her second goal when she took it from the far blue line down to the net. Her shot from the right of the goaltender found the far top corner of the net to make it 3-0. Katlin Spivey was credited with the assist on the play.

The fourth Pirate goal came 3:35 into the third period when Tori Rhode was in the right place at the right time following a Lexy Wangen shot and punched in a goal to complete the scoring.

Crookston peppered Thief River Falls’ Kaylee Koop with 50 shots in the game but managed just four goals.

The Pirates will look to make it four straight wins when they travel to Thief River Falls on Friday to face Eveleth-Gilbert at 6 p.m. On Saturday the Pirates will face Park Rapids at 2 p.m. in Thief River Falls.

"Eveleth-Gilbert will be a tough challenge," Persson said. "They have some kids that can put the puck in the net. It will be nice to get a challenge to move the puck up and down the rink where we can play some defense. It doesn't benefit us to play on one end of the ice."