The Northland Pines Eagles scored early and often to  advance to the Division Two championship game with a 9-2 win over the Somerset Spartans in the second semi-final on Thursday afernoon.

Pines opened the scoring just three minutes into the game when Riley McGee carried the puck in along the right boards and fired a wrist shot from the bottom of the circle that beat Spartan goalie Kaleb Bents.

Less than two  minutes later, Gunnar Schiffman passed down to Zach Maillette in the left corner. Maillette skated the puck into the slot and put a backhand on Bents. Bents made the save but Schiffman followed the play and knocked in the rebound.

Somerset got on the board at 6:25 with a well played two on one. Beaudee Smith took the shot from the right side and Brett Wilkins kicked the rebound right to Antonio Gomez who deposited it into a wide open net.

Somerset got into some penalty trouble at the start of the second period, and the Eagles made them pay.

Pines increased their lead to 3-1 with a power play goal at 2:49 in the second. Brady Sneddon fired a shot from the high slot that hit the left post. Harmon Marien was parked at the side of the net and picked up the rebound.

The Eagles got a second power play goal at 5:06. McGee dragged the puck across the front of the net and took Bents with him. McGee lost the puck but his teammate Max Brown found it and punched it into the net.

Midway through the second, Trevor Romatoski spotted Matthew Szafranski behind the Spartans defense and flipped him the puck. Szafranski walked in on Bents and fired a low hard shot from just below the right hash marks to pad the Pines lead to 5-1.

The Eagles third power play goal of the period came on a sweet pass from McGee who drove to the net from the left side and dished the puck to Harmon Marien in the slot. Marien’s one-timer made it 6-1.

Just 1:43 into the third period, Romatoski put the game into running time with a wrist sot from the left faceoff circle.

With just over five minutes to play Smith weaved his way through the Pines defensemen and slid the puck under Wilkins to make it 7-2. But Pines came back a minute and a half later when Snedden scored from the left face off dot, followed up by a goal from Schiffman 11 seconds later to make it 9-2.