CEC Girls To Face Grand Rapids-Greenway In Semi-Finals

Photo: Shelley Robideaux

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Feb 10

Kerry Rodd-NSO

CLOQUET – If Cloquet-Esko-Carlton is going to continue further into the Section 7AA girls hockey playoffs they’ll need to play much better than they did on Thursday night in a 2-1 win over St. Francis/North Branch. The Jacks started slow, and at times seemed like they were skating in a quagmire compared to the late season run that saw them win seven straight games.

Despite the slow start the Jacks continued to battle and found just enough offense to win. Defensively, the Jacks got a strong effort in goal from Katie Beckman and CEC used a stifling defense once they got the lead in the third period that smothered the Fight Saints.

Kelly Kotowicz gave the Saints a 1-0 lead at 9:18 of the first period by banging in a rebound during a goal mouth scramble past Beckman. The goal, which was assisted by Katie Sigrinius, would be the only goal the Saints would score the rest of the game.

CEC came out a bit more aggressively in the second period, but they just seemed to struggle and be out of sync all night. Good passes were not caught cleanly and at other times players who were making what seemed like an easy pass completely missed their mark, or passed the puck into the skates and/or behind their intended target.

Even though they were struggling, to the Jacks credit, they continued to work hard and eventually that paid off with a goal by the always tough Emily Gustafson on a feed from Megan Nelson. Gustafson skated in from the right wing and tucked a shot past Saints goalie Dakotah Bullen at 4:06 to tie the score in the second period.

The winning goal for the Jacks was scored by senior defender Jessie Ryan on a pass from Dalyce Gustafson just 2:54 into the final period. The rest of the third period the Jacks spent keeping the puck on the outside and forechecking the Saints into submission. In fact, the Jacks defense was so good they allowed only four shots to get through to Beckman in the final period.

For the game the Jacks outshot the Saints 28-17, but the outcome against the seventh seed was in doubt until the final buzzer sounded.

CEC will now move on to play Saturday night at home against Grand Rapids/Greenway in a semi-final matchup. The teams split a pair of games earlier this year with the Lightning winning the first matchup at home and CEC taking a similar decision at the CARC just a couple of weeks ago.

Kerry Rodd can be reached at kerry@northlandsportsonline.com