CEC Tops Rails in Season Finale

Kerry Rodd – NSO

Cloquet-Esko-Carlton erupted for five goals in the second period in their boys hockey game against Proctor on Thursday night. The Jacks ended up skating away with an 8-2 win over Proctor in their final regular season game of the season behind hat tricks from Koby Bender and Dylan Johnson.

Johnson gave CEC a 1-0 lead in the first period with Tyler Chicos adding the assist at 10:12. However, the Rails answered back at 11:42 on a goal by Jon Aase with Reid Morin assisting and that’s how the first period ended.

The second period was all CEC and it started just :57 seconds in when Johnson picked up his second goal on an assisty by Bender. At 10:20 it was Bender scoring on the power play from Kyle Klatt and Nick Niemi making it 3-1. Less than a minute later at 11:09 it was Bender scoring his second goal of the season unassisted. Then Johnson completed his hat trick at 13:46 from Klatt and Bender. That was followed by a goal from Klatt with Johnson and Bender assisting at 15:35 making it 6-1 after two periods.

Bender scored his third goal of the game at 6:12 of the final period with Jack Kuhlman assisting and the Jacks were up 7-1. Derek Dahlgren managed to answer for the Rails at 12:42 on a power play with Jake Malec and Dylan Pionk providing the assists, but CEC closed out the scoring at 16;28 on a Reid Davidson goal from Darin Davidson.

For the game the Jacks out shot the Rails 50-9 as Eric Newman made seven saves for CEC and Tanner Haedrich added 42 saves for the Rails.

CEC will play next on Tuesday night at St. Michael-Albertville in the Section 7AA playoffs, while Proctor will play at home on Tuesday versus North Branch in the Section 5A playoffs.

Kerry Rodd can be reached at kerry@northlandsportsonline.com

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