It had been twenty-two days and over twelve periods of scoreless hockey since Northland Pines Avery Renkes netted an overtime game winning goal to defeat Medford. Three weeks and four losses later, the Eagles offense ended their slump erupting for seven goals in defeating Medford for the second time this season. “It was nice to see the girls put up a few points on the board,” said a relieved Pines Head Coach Jeff Stebbeds.

Led by a perfect three-for-three powerplay, the Eagles maximized their opportunities scoring seven times on twenty-three shots. At the other end, Pines freshman goaltender Lucy Nowak faced forty-six shots including twenty-two in a furious third period rally attempt by the Raiders.

Medford owned a significant edge in offensive zone time, especially in the final two periods, but Nowak kept the door closed on their comeback. Raiders Head Coach Tonya Schmidtfranz acknowledged Nowak’s effort, “She saved their team tonight, she did a nice job.”

Medford opened Parent’s Night with a spirited first five minutes getting the first five shots of the game. Like a ticking bomb, the Eagle River scoreless streak was ready to explode. At the 7:00 mark, the time expired when Junior Sarah Nordine got a beautiful pass from Ally Fuller and put her own rebound past Eagle’s goalie Chloe Pipkorn. The flood gates opened as Pines scored three times in five minutes to take a 3-0 lead to the lockeroom. Freshman Larken Paff scored on a mini breakaway after picking the defenseman’s pocket at the blue line followed by Bella Nowak’s powerplay goal from the left hash mark. Rebounding from their slow start, Pines would finish the period with twelve shots, Medford with eleven.

The Raiders puck possession game controlled most of the second period. Using a systematic low to high puck movement Medford kept Pines chasing. The offensive zone pressure paid off on an ensuing powerplay when Emily Kiselicka sent a puck toward the net front that was redirected by Grace Schmidtfranz and past Nowak to get the Raiders on the scoreboard. Eagle River quickly took the momentum back scoring a minute later on a coast-to-coast rush by sophomore Reese Retallick. Pines again struck with three straight goals. Nowak tallied her second of the game on a rebound and Olivia Peterson added a powerplay goal coming down the right wing and beating Pipkorn with a snapshot over her right shoulder. With a 6-1 lead after two periods the Eagles had put their scoring drought in the rearview mirror.  

Just over two minutes into period three Kara Kennedy breathed life into a Raiders comeback with a rebound goal to trim the lead to 6-2. Junior Zayleah Leonhardt who helped set-up the goal was rewarded with her second assist of the game. Like a goal scoring vulture, Leonhardt, had been circling the Pines net all game. A costly Raider penalty put the Eagles back on the powerplay and Lilly Beitler scored to push the lead back to five.

Medford never stopped pushing and Leonhardt, who had to have finish the game with a dozen or more shots, would score twice, just sixty-eight seconds apart, closing the Pines lead to 7-4. Leonhardt’s first goal was smooth zone entry and cross to the middle where she beat Nowak with a nifty wrist shot over the glove.  Her second was a backhand put-back from the hash marks. Nowak would shut down Leonhardt’s bid for a hat rick with two quality saves in the games final five minutes. Pipkorn stuffed a breakaway attempt by Mia Tulowitzky with just under two minutes to go. Nowak finished with forty-two saves to secure the Eagles second win of the season.

The Raiders remain staunchly behind their sophomore goaltender who is essentially learning one of sports most difficult positions on the fly. Her sacrifice for the team has not gone unnoticed. “The whole team is working and growing together, our goalie has been in the net for eight weeks now,” Schmidtfranz explained. “The whole team appreciates her stepping up and playing the crucial role she does.” 

Eagle River (2-4) has a young roster filled with fifteen freshmen and sophomores and their head coach knows there is a learning curve. “Being young we have to learn to not let off the gas when we get a lead like we had,” said Stebbeds. “By getting a few costly penalties, it kept the door open for them. Credit is due to Medford, they outplayed us in the third.”

The Raiders (0-6) will go back to work in search of that first win. Schmidtfranz admitted, “Last night definitely didn’t go the way we wanted. If you look at pure shots on goal we could have won the game, but we didn’t and we’ll keep grinding out our hiccups.”

Three Stars of the game:

1-NP-Nowak, 2-MED-Leonhardt, 3-NP-Retallick

Blue Collar-Tulowitsky