CEC Girls Win Defensive Battle Against Blaine

Wes Vork-NSO

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Jan 6

Kerry Rodd-NSO

CLOQUET – The Cloquet Area Fire District would have been proud of the smothering defense by the Cloquet-Esko-Carlton girls hockey team on Thursday night. While the defense, and goalie Katie Beckman, were playing lights out defense, the team got just enough offense from Caitlyn Lilly to beat the Blaine Bengals 2-0.

So suffocating was the CEC defense that if the Bengals lit a match in the first two periods there would have been a Lumberjack player standing next to them to extinguish the flame before it fully developed. In fact, CEC allowed only four shots on goal in the first period, to a team that had beaten them a week ago in a holiday tournament 4-1.

“They got three quick goals against us last time and I think they girls got down a bit” said CEC coach Mike Bushey. “The last three or four weeks we have been battling injury and sickness, We are getting better now and starting to get kids back,” Added Bushey.

The Lumberjacks scored the first goal of the game at 5:40 of the opening period when Lilly finished off a two-man rush by knocking the puck past a sprawled out Tara Hoverstad making it 1-0. The play developed when Emily Gustafson found Kalie Shevich streaking up the left wing entering the Bengals zone. Shevich then took the puck deep into the left corner before snapping a pass into the slot to the trailing Lilly who finished the play.

“I thought our four seniors provided us with great leadership,” commented Bushey. “Experience is important and we have needed to play younger players. Missing players is tough in the short term, but is a real long term benefit.”

From that point on the game was tightly played with neither team able to create much in the way of scoring chances. After two periods the Jacks held a 13-10 shot advantage and had matched the physical play of the Bengals.

Blaine came out hard in the final period hoping to make a statement against the much smaller Jacks, but CEC continually thwarted scoring attempts by keeping shooting lanes open for goalie Beckman, allowing her to see the first shot while they cleared most second attempt opportunities.

Lilly finally broke through again with only 16 seconds remaining by picking up a loose puck near the Bengal bench area and then slamming the door on any comeback by wristing a shot into the empty net from just inside the Blaine blue line for a 2-0 lead.

Beckman finished with 21 saves in preserving her first high school shutout.

Kerry Rodd can be reached at kerry@northlandsportsonline.com