Hermantown Wins The Battle of State Ranked Teams

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Dec 20, 2011

Kerry Rodd-NSO

The #3 ranked Hermantown Hawks showed there is quite a gap between being a top five team in Class A and a #15 ranked team when the Hawks pounded Virginia 8-1 at Hermantown Arena.

Just 3:58 into the game Andrew Mattson scored from Jared Thomas and Jeremy Amys giving the Hawks a 1-0 edge. Hermantown added a second goal in the first period at 10:23 from Chris Benson and Travis Koepke and Neal Pionk.

Hermantown added three more goals in the second period with the first coming at 7:46 as Mattson notched his second of the game from Thomas and Amys and then Benson added his second goal at 9:20 this time from Brian LeBlanc. The Hawks scored once more before the end of the second period when Thomas scored from Jared Kolquist at 12:46.

Just 14 seconds into the third period it was Mattson finishing off his hat trick just 14 seconds into the final stanza with Pionk and Amys assisting. Virginia finally got on the board when Nick Blaeser at 10:01, but before the period ended it was Amys and Paul Harrold scoring with Harrold’s goal a short hander.

The win improves the Hawks the record to 6-0 on the season. The Hawks will be back at it on Thursday when they host Duluth Denfeld.

Kerry Rodd can be reached at kerry@northlandsportsonline.com