CEC Girls Lead Early But Fall To Elk River 3-2

Chris Shevich-NSO

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Dec 17

Kerry Rodd-NSO

CLOQUET – Jonna Curtis is a great hockey player! That seemed to be the general consensus of all those in attendance last night in Cloquet-Esko-Carlton’s 3-2 loss to Elk River/Zimmerman at the Cloquet Area Recreation Center. The Elk’s star center finished with a pair of goals, but her speed and ability to create space allowed Elk River to come back from an early two-goal deficit.

The youthful Lumberjacks shocked the Elks in the first period with a pair of goals to gain a 2-0 edge. After Curtis took a cross checking penalty just 1:48 into the game the Jacks got a pretty tip-in goal by Dalyce Gustafson with only a second remaining on the power play to give CEC a 1-0 lead. The play developed when defender Kristi Konietzko sent a pass to her partner on the blueline Megan Nelson. Nelson zipped a pass into the slot as Gustafson moved from left to right and tipped the puck past a frozen Samantha Giessler for a power play goal.

CEC went up 2-0 at 10:58 when Dalyce Gustafson pulled a loose puck to Kelly Carlson and then Carlson found Nelson at the point who powered a shot past Geissler for a two-goal lead.

Elk River/Zimmerman got back into the game just 37 seconds into the second period when Curtis slipped a shot past CEC goalie Alyssa Acheson to cut the gap to 2-1. At 8:22 Madison Ellis jumped on a loose puck on another power play and the game was even at 2-2 after two periods.

The final goal of the game was scored at 2:09 of the third period by none other than Curtis on a beautiful unassisted tally to make it 3-2.

CEC had a great chance
near the end of the game when two Elk
River penalties and a pulled goalie gave the Jacks a rare 6-3 advantage.
With time winding down Carley Esse got off a great shot that beat the goalie but appeared to hit the pipe and
end up on the wrong side
of the line for Cloquet.

For the game Acheson made 23 saves on 26 shots, while Geissler made 17 saves on 19 shots.

Kerry Rodd can be reached at kerry@northlandsportsonline.com